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Avery Johnson was the only human to witness both the beginning and end of the Human-Covenant War, as he was present when Harvest was attacked and saw the Prophet of Truth's death, which signified the end of the war. He was also the first human to kill a member of the Covenant.
Absolutely a human victory. For the Covenant this was a war of extermination, for Humanity it was a war for survival. based on the war goals, human victory. A pyhrric victory no doubt. you don't go from 800~ colonies down to a few dozen and call it a complete win, but humanity SURVIVED.
One of the most beautiful speeches given by Londo mollari. I was actually thinking how similar the Earth-Mimbari war and the Earth-Covenant war seemed to be.
@@CortexNewsService B5 had such a huge influence on sci fi culture and people don't even know about it. It breaks my heart. Deserves more recognition, thank God for this remake and that remaster on hbo. Hell, it's even inspired a couple of my own original short stories. I wish I had some way to ask the old bungie heads.
"In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering."
It is the most interesting element of Halo's story to me that it starts in a position of imminent total defeat. Before the game, humanity is losing disastrously - the outcome of every battle is either a loss on the ground due to overwhelming numbers, or a victory on the ground followed by an opponent with orbital supremacy rendering the planet uninhabitable. The vast majority of all worlds have been lost. The priority of all military forces is not to win, but to spend lives as dearly as possible and keep the enemy from finding the homeworld and ending the war. Humanity became so desperate that it gambled 50% of its entire remnant military strength on what is, objectively, a suicide mission with incredibly low odds of success. This mission became a comprehensive defeat when Reach, the host planet for the assembled forces, was invaded by a force so dramatically superior that they were annihilated within days. Humanity's last insane hope to stave off defeat has failed utterly, and the Pillar of Autumn is fleeing from the ashes. This is where you, the player, start the story.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 imperiums never even come close to being that threatened Terra might be but they always got another spare million worlds as they say
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 more like every battle the UNSC has is the equivalent of cadia falling in terms of disastrous consequences the imperium has a better success chances that what the UNSC hed initially
Dear Humanity, We regret being alien bastards. We regret coming to Earth. And we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!
_For us, the storm has passed. the war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure ... sacrifice, and unshakable conviction that their fight; our fight, was elsewhere. As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten." -Lord Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood_ The Human-Covenant War was greatly crafted. Though while that war is over, another has begun.
This is one of my favorite sci-fi conflicts because I feel like it only ever deals in shades of grey. Especially so since the first halo game. The Fall of Reach is just such an excellent book at illustrating a conflict wherein humans are outmatched, but not defenceless, overwhelmed but not beaten, and most of all, it helps with the timescale of the conflict. Some of the other lore adds to it too. By the end of the war you have a military in which many of its members have only ever known a time of war with the covenant. It also adds in an element of realism with the idea behind the Cole protocol. Space is so vast that if humanity makes every effort to hide where their worlds are, as numerous as they may be, they can buy quite a lot of time for themselves. I think halo always struck a good balance between the classic trope of sci-fi aliens that have overwhelming technology to the point of being completely untouchable, and the other classic sci-fi trope that humans are completely on par with aliens. Halo takes a middle ground, and a nuanced one at that. Where humans are inferior overall, but not in every aspect, and are outclassed, but still have the staying power to put up a good long fight. It's refreshing in the world of sci fi. And then of course in the books, you get a really good sense of grey morality that creeps in so often during wartime. More and more "evil" decisions are made by human leaders as they get more and more desperate. The Spartan 2 & 3 programs for example. The military takeover of the government. Plus a whole number of ONI operations. In my opinion Halo's subplot is about the sacrifices we are willing to make to win, and how after all is said and done, there's usually not much left to lord over anyway. The UNSC at the end of the classic era is a shadow of its former self, and although poised for a lot of regrowth, it has a whole myriad of problems it ignored for the sake of the war effort. Insurrectionists, or their evolution being the primary one. Plus an absolutely devastated economy and civilian population.
Nice analysis! But the spartan 2 program was made stomp out rebellions of humans, not made for the war. Also the UEG nuked their own citizens. The war didn't make them more desperate, they were terrible before.
@@nobleman9393 The Covenant wasn't pure evil. They were a group of species working peacefully (internally, at least) towards a common goal while humanity was one species threatening universal balance and peace, so you could say that the Human-Covenant war was actually a "police action" like the Gulf War. You can also compare the Covenant to the NATO and humanity to China.
@@richerd4266 Err, no? If the Gulf War had turned into a deliberate attempt at mass genocide via nuking population centres, the 'police action' would have rightly been called evil.
You can thank Eric Nylund and one of the writers from Microsoft for that. I kid you not, if Bungie had their way, none of the lore we know today would have existed, Halo would have been a self contained game. We would have lost out on this. Im glad they went the way they did.
@@KillerOrca It's not only great because you get told a fantastic space opera but also the fact that good lore can keep your game / movie alive for much longer. The amount of Halo lore master's out there who just talk about the extended universe is a testament to that.
The book Fall of Reach was written to be published alongside Halo CE in 2001. There were people that intended Halo to be a platform for story telling early on, but as already mentioned Bungie didn't want that to be the case. One thing I'm glad Bungie didn't get their way with.
There is one more detail to note about the Human-Covenant War: specifically, what happened in the final year of the war, 2552. That is when the war entered its final and most cataclysmic stage. Before 2552, with rare exceptions, the war was defined by engagements of only a few dozen vessels on either side at a maximum. It was a war of attrition which the Covenant pursued relentlessly. The UNSC rarely fought pitched battles if they had a choice, conserving forces where they could, and continued to lose territory. Critical worlds such as Earth and Reach were so heavily fortified and defended that they were considered safe from Covenant attack. The Covenant rarely sustained casualties, particularly of larger capital ships, but continued to whittle down the UNSC bit by bit with each engagement. That all changed in 2552 with Sigma Octanus, when the UNSC committed forty ships and numerous Spartans to defend Sigma Octanus, defeating a Covenant fleet at a high cost. This started a catastrophic chain of events where the bulk of the UNSC and Covenant fleets engaged each other in several decisive battles. The UNSC Navy was virtually wiped out, numbering perhaps two hundred to three hundred warships total, but in return, the Covenant's losses were enormous. Between Sigma Octanus, Reach, Halo, the Unyielding Hierophant, Earth, Onyx, High Charity and other engagements, the Covenant lost well over a thousand warships and countless millions of troops fighting against the UNSC. In essence, the vast majority of the Covenant military was destroyed in just a few months. The mutual destruction of the UNSC and Covenant fleets really shouldn't be overlooked, as they set the stage for the collapse of the Covenant shortly thereafter.
Uh... Are we forgetting about the massive Covenant fleet that orbited around High Charity that numbered _in the thousands..._ That fleet wasnt destroyed and even a tenth of that fleet couldve wiped out Humanity. Your alternate retelling of the truth is cute though, I guess... But anyone not smoking the copium knows that Humanity was lost if not for plot armor. Humanity was only fighting a small fraction of the Covenant and still getting its 🍑handed to it.
It is also one of those few wars in popular fiction where Humanity was on the losing side. Only the Earth/Minbari War (Babylon 5) comes to mind on such terms.
@@keisufederationmapping2748 There two more for humans being the bully. - "Enders game" Humanity went from bullied to ruthless murdering bully. - Star Trek (Mirror, Mirror universe, although most universe as well but subversively)
In one of the books, human insurrectionists actually had a bit of a black market of translated Covenant weapons (as in, the the ammo counters were translated to human characters), which pissed the Covenant off so much that they literally ignored the squad of Spartan 3s to instead focus on the heretical humans. Lol.
@seekingabsolution1907 no no its not at all. The war goals set out by the covenant was total eradication. Human strength is low readiness is low, but billions have survived the covenant isnt.
The saddest thing about the Human-Covenant War is the fact that the entire thing was based on a lie, one designed solely to uphold a demonstrably false belief system.
Realistically if we didn't count 343 Industries's lore the Nation of the UNSC after the Human-Covenant would be in shambles, the Navy ruined for decades to come, the economy crashing down like a stone in water, and with so much of the percentage of the population dead, the all of a sudden revival of the navy in hundreds wouldn't have occurred from a realistic stand point with all those Forerunner advancements it would take decades for them to be properly integrated into major production centers and economic purposes. The nation would be in recovery mode for likely a century. The nation is likely lucky that it hasn't become a authoritarian state yet after the war that ONI may like it to be in universe with all these factors.
I think that humanity is now on the opposing side of quality quantity equation, and form what I heard ONI is actually destabilising situation among other racer as humanity is outnumbered
Worth noting that, while a star ship might have a pricetag in the multiple billions, that money is not transmuted into FTL capable vessels - all the money to build them goes into the economies. A nation has this funny relationship with debt - well, funny compared to us individual mortals. It doesn't matter if it has to take on massive amounts of debt - it will either survive as a nation to see it paid off, or it will collapse and the debt doesn't matter anymore, which means creditor groups have a very vested interest in seeing the success of the nation that owes them. With the money now acquired, it can start spending it, and it needs to spend it quickly - in fact, it almost wants to be wasting money, it wants to spend it so quickly, all so that it can accomplish two things: [1] Get industry to keep cranking out product [2] Make the money move. The important thing for an economy is NOT to have money - having money is almost as bad as having no money - it's to make money *move* through the economy. When you put 1k in your mattress for a rainy day, that money may as well have been destroyed, as far as the economy is concerned, since it's not being traded for goods or services. Now, does this make other problems later? Almost certainly - hyper-inflation can happen if it's not done with at least SOME tact, or people can lose confidence in the currency outright if horrifically mismanaged; and those are just the extremes on top of a few other issues. Are those risks and downsides worth the tradeoff of preventing total economic collapse? Well, the answer is obvious when the choice is between "certain demise" and "shitty times with a chance of demise."
Dont know about that. Many older defense structures and assets could have been scrapped to make new things. (Why maintain a big ship if you can scrap it and use half salvage tech to build half of it?). Also while their foundries would have taken a hit, their core planets remained. And this means that the bulk of their economic might survived.
Most of the recovery was thanks to the integration of forerunner and covenant technologies. Humanity still hasn't truly recovered from the war as only a few worlds have been resettled but with the tech gained from the war the glassed worlds like reach could be habitable again in a few decades instead of centuries
One thing this video really puts into perspective, is the absolute tragedy of the Halo mythos. Even after the war, there still wasn’t peace. Everyone lost. Billions died, all just so more war and chaos could follow. In a weird way, this feels almost as grim dark as the 40k universe. However, in a much more realistic way. The fact that it’s set to a melancholic piano, just sets the perfect tone. This isn’t a glorious triumph of humanity. It’s the feeling of just, having survived.
Arguably, the UNSC won the fight as it came out of the conflict intact, but heavily scared and battered. Though it would no doubt have been wiped out had the truth never been revealed.
No shit... Humans could hold their ground on land... But little can they do with a technologically superior coalition that can destroy a Planet from space
@@JoeMartinez18 Agreed. Though it was not simply the element of being technologically superior, but also holding a religious zeal that drove the Covenant. Broken, only by a prophet that applauded destruction, a protect that was cruel in spreading discord, and a prophet that was masking his intentions with lies. Shattered, by those who knew the truth, those who were shown the truth, and those who had lived with the truth.
@@scorpixel1866 I agree that intact may not have been the right choice of word to use but given that by the end of the war a united force that was driven by both political and religious beliefs to exterminate humanity had broken out into civil war and was shattered while the UNSC was still united and endured by the wars end than intact, in that context, would indeed be the right word to choose.
Having never played Halo, the story seems almost like dramatisation of a Stellaris game; UNE goes up against Spirtualist Awakened Empire and its vassal states, with both sides getting blindsided by Prethoryan.
"..."History is written by the Victors". Perhaps he was correct for his time, though one would be hard pressed to find any true victors in the conflict against the Covenant. The trials of our great war are burnt into the surface of almost every human colony, our worlds reduced to ash, once defended by a faithful few against insurmountable odds. Perhaps now it is more correct to say that history is written by the survivors, whether victorious or not." Still my favorite quote from the "Halo: Heroes Never Die" shorts.
"History is written by the victors" is never correct regardless of time. But yes, Halo got it right. Survivors write history, regardless of side they fought with.
I always love the lore of halo, like forerunner-flood war, but specially the human-covenant war since start to end, what a bloody And devastating war this was
There's a reason the Human-Covenant War is also known as the Great War. The death toll possibly surpasses all of the wars combined in Human history. As for the Covenant, despite it's might, it was just another empire, and just like all empires, they eventually fall one way or another. Thank you for uploading this on UA-cam.
There's really no "possibly" about it. Tens of billions died during the conflict at an absolute minimum. At Reach alone, the UNSC lost several hundred million troops. An entire Covenant species (Skirmishers) went extinct during that battle due to the cataclysmic losses against the UNSC. That's just one battle in a war that lost 27 years.
@@Cailus3542 What's even more frightening is that the 40 billion corresponds to about 2/3rds of the Covenant. So even thought Humanity lost possibly 80-90% (I refuse to believe that Humanity lost only 50% of her population. That's just not possible from the amount of devastation that they had to endure) of her overall population, the Covenant were clearly destroying themselves just to kill the Humans. If Humanity had held for a few more years (maybe even a decade), it's very possible that The Covenant may literally have run out of manpower. It goes to show how insane the San'Shayuum were to even consider this to be only option. But what makes this so scary, is that the Humans had NO IDEA. There was no way for them to know any of this. As far as they were aware, it seemed that the Covenant had literally trillions of souls it could feed into its war machine, and they weren't even after thirty years of intense fighting, they had nothing to show for it.
I have to agree ill admit I wasnt too happy when larissa left and was very skeptical but I can whole heartedly say that I was proven wrong, he does an absolutely phenomenal job and I seriously think you couldnt get anyone better
Correction: the destruction of the unyielding hierophant came AFTER the destruction of the first Halo ring, happening between the events of Halo CE and Halo 2, not before
As a kid it was always felt impactful to me how the Elites found out they were being lied to and joined with the humans. I distinctly remember in Halo 2 rooting for the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters during the Covenant schism lol
Humanity pushing past their bigotry and being able to work with Alien species again, partially due to a desperate need to integrate their tech into Human tech, is a testament to their durability in-universe. They deserve the mantle.
Humanity's fighting spirit were the catalyst for the civil war. The Sangheili constantly questioned the Prophets on why Humans were not taken into the Covenant's ranks considering that they were extremely resilient against them.
@@Saicofake or the fact humans were also shown to have honor and Valor, laying down their lives so others can escape accepting 1 on 1 fights they know they almost certainly couldn't win self sacrifice to achieve an objective, all of this also confused the shangheli a species built on such principles
This was good, but I think High Command is at its strongest when it analyzes specific battles and tactics, rather than simply explaining a war in general. I'd like to see more unit maneuvers and detailed events in these videos.
Dw bro. It takes lots of time and effort to do all these. Plus, they've done a video like this in the past anyway. To be fair, it was like 3 years ago, so they don't want to repeat the same things too much
@@spiffygonzales5899 You're too old for imaginary friends. That said, Jesus in some Mark V armor would certainly make the Cleansing of the Temple a lot more entertaining.
This war was so absolutely devastating for humanity, I can never realistically see humanity trying to make friends with ANY other sentient organisms in the near future. Xenophobia would be rampant even if it was more logical to realize the benefit of making allies during the Flood crisis, especially since the attackers were a coalition of multiple alien species. I'd imagine the UNSC would go full Greater Terran Union mode and would likely work towards destroying all species of the Covenant regardless of the fact that the Covenant was proved to be a religion of lies.
If any, the human-covenant war would have made humanity realise that making alien allies is crucial. Unless Humanity figures a way to quickly repopulate their colonies and upgrade their technologies, fighting future alien enemies without alien allies would spell disaster.
I would say it would be very xenophobic to all member race of the covenant (except the Sangheili but would likely still have some level of distrust). It would likely treat future first contact with high level of suspicion and look a lot more inward for the next couple of generation to rebuild and lower contact with other aliens
To be fair: ONI does come pretty close to xenophobia a lot of times, from making a strain of inedible Sangheili crop that would kill off the edible strains and starve them, to also keeping the Sangheili embroiled in civil war.
@@thebastard890 I always found this to be a gross misstep by ONI. The Sangheili were probably the ONLY alien species that was accepting of the Humans. Burning bridges with the Sangheili is absolutely stupid.
The scene at 6:16 … I hadn’t seen that one before, and when coupled with the narration just before it -“…the marital spirit of humanity… “ - for some reason just hit me with such force I ain’t afraid to say I shed a few tears. It puts you in mind of the many wars humanity has fought with similar stakes: one of these sides won’t exist by the end. And when that when that burden of survival falls so heavily, and then when soldiers fight so fiercely for just a chance that those behind them might live… The scene has a lone UNSC soldier firing ineffectually against and elite’s armor. He knows that one hit from that squires will end him and he has no means to make that hit not kill. He dodges and fires again, hoping to end the foe before he is ended. When he is disarmed with such casual ease, he doesn’t slump to his knees and see his demise with despair. He doesn’t wail in fear. He tackles the elite to the ground. The marital spirit of humanity - the drive to be the one to survive.
My favorite analogous scene is seeing a bunch of ODSTs clamber onto a Brute Chieftain in order to finally take him out. Speaking of which, both that scene & the Forge vs Arbiter scene end with a knife strike.
The covenant, with their superior tech and unified purpose, outnumbered, outgunned, and out maneuvered the UNSC but could not account for that one strange human attribute .... "Luck" That and the UNSC Spartans nasty tendency to throw sticky gernades back in their face.
@@takebacktheholyland9306 Nah it makes sense that they lost. This quote is extremely arrogant considering that the UNSC would have been completely eradicated if the Sangheili did not join their side. The Elites and Thel'Vadam specifically saved humanity's ass.
@@Mediados exactly! the schism happened partially as a result of the Elites questioning the need to exterminate humanity. to many of them, humanity had shown its prowess and were worthy of joining the covenant. The prophets responded to this questioning of their authority by giving ever increasing favor to the brutes. which further hurt the prophet-elite relations.
@@rwagingsloth9528 That's the reason why I personally don't really support the UNSC. Officially the are allied with the Swords and support their cause of unifying Sanghelios under Vadam, but on the other hand they let ONI just capture and torture Sangheili to develop bioweapons. Where the Arbiter has proven to be honorable and cooperative, humans sharpen the knife they keep to stab him in the back if he becomes too powerful.
@@Mediados The actions of the Sangheli during the great schism were NOT altruistic. the Sangheli respected humanity, but that doesn't mean they hesitated to glass entire planets, and bring humanity to its knees. Oni is definitely a "evil" for the greater good of humanity kind of organization, but they were not wrong to fear the Sangheli in the aftermath of the Human-Covenant war. i doubt humanity knew the extent of the dmg the covenant civilian populations sustained in the great schism, for all they knew the Sangheli could rearm for another war while humanity was still recovering
In the books, you feel a grim resolve growing after every defeat to fight to the last man to prove that if nothing else, humanity did not go quietly into the night.
I remember when CE came out and my friend and I were reading the little book that came with it explaining the backstory. It referred to the Chief as a cyborg lol. We were both huge fans of Star Trek at the time and the Dominion War arc in particular because the idea of a WWII style conflict in space was so awesome to 11 year old us. When Halo dropped and we read the "your destruction is the will of the gods" line in the booklet and how the Covenant just started wrecking humanity's shit without reason or negotiation, it blew our goddamn minds. In CE the Covenant were truly alien and their motivation for wiping out humanity was still mysterious. The Dominion had been our favorite alien enemy and the moment the Covenant came up with Halo they were the new favorite by a long shot. Even 20 years later now, I still love the Covenant and the lore surrounding the war. It is unlike anything else in sci-fi.
The more I learn about the Human Covenant War the more depressed it makes me feel, the games are great but I feel like they never truly capture the sheer brutality of the War, I think Reach and ODST are the games that best capture that feeling.
The Covenant have some really great weapons and Ship and Vehicle designs, The UNSC stuff is good but I always find myself using The Covenant stuff more
Gotta hand it to the Forerunners not to leave any accesible relics on the surface of Earth for humans to advance quickly. If only they had more time or at least left us a single AI.
Or even Ancient Human technology given how the entirety of the orion-arm was the home territory of humanity for millions years and then the forerunners to.
I can't help but wonder if the Human-Covenant war was roughly based on the Byzantine-Sassanian war of 602-628AD. They're about the same duration, and both have inflection points at a key location (Reach falling to the Covenant, Antioch falling to the Persians) which was later retaken at great cost. Both end with each side utterly devastated, with Roman Syria and Judaea falling to the Rashidun caliphate just under a decade after their war with the Persians ended, vaguely like the UNSC loss of the outer colonies. Could just be coincidence, or maybe the writers looked to history for inspiration.
Nice historical parallel, perhaps the rashidun are a stand in for the flood as they completely conquered the sassinids or covenant in this case while the Romans or humans held on in a greatly weakened state
You have to wonder how much of the Covenant's power was lost during the Great Schism. You're looking at the Covenant's largest fleet and its center of government tearing itself apart in a matter of hours. The battle over Delta Halo had to have been the single most crippling moment for the Covenant military in the whole war, even more than Operation First Strike.
That's actually a really interesting thing to think about. When you look at the statistics, we know that at the end of the war, the Covenant lost 40 Billion souls, but there's no evidence that Humanity is the one who inflicted all those losses. It's very possible that the extremely brutal civil war could've constituted the majority of those losses, and that's not taking into account the loss of life to the Flood when it reach High Charity.
The story as a whole is one of betrayal, lies, and genocide. It’s a story of perseverance, bravery, sacrifice. God halos universe is so fleshed out. It’s so full of secrets and mysteries that have yet to be solved. It’s my favorite sci-fi ever. It’s comparable to none.
To be honest , even when humanity is always a victim in nearly every fantasy futuristic universe, its always nice to see they keep fighting against all odds , even when this Covenant look like a race which would perfectly fit in the warhammer 40k universe to replace to Tau ..
@@loadingerror9975 They're hardly 'Literally the tau' when they have a completely different belief system and actively opress and pushing every living thing within their reach. There is no "Greater good" in the covenant. The tau are far more than "A coalition of races" but sure. Literally the tau.
Of minor note; Harvest, ironically enough, isnt actually the "most distanct" colony distance wise. Its actually closer to Earth than quite a few other colonies (a mere 12 light years). However, because slipspace is FUCKY, getting to it can take ages, meaning its "technicaly" an outer colony. (Bit of retconing on several peoples part as the UEG was supposed to be far smaller than the 800+ settlements it later had)
Crazy part is before the halos we’re fired in the previous era humans and the covenant prophet race were literally best friends but that info was lost to time but the humans literally fought like 8 different races at once just nuts
The Cole Protocol was so-named after Rear Admiral Cole (who is also the hero of Harvest, having won the Campaign for Harvest after those 5 years of desperate combat). After witnessing the dogged determination of the Covenant to eradicate every human, man, woman and child, and the resources they put forth to destroy the species as a whole, made the UEG and UNSC to create said protocol as a means of ensuring that, upon contact with the Covenant, they would destroy any relevant data to the location of Earth and her most valuable colonies/military installations. Especially when considering that there are many notable times in which the Covenant have attempted to hack into and crack InfoSec of the UNSC and the various subdivisions of the Military Arm of the UNSC. Thus concern, all the way back during the first initial years of the conflict, necessitated a scorched earth policy with regards to slipspace data and travel and randomization of evacuation vectors if pursued by Covenant assets.
It is a testament to the quality of both Halo's soundtrack and the Institutes writing and editing that this video has the same notes played on repeat for over ten minutes and has no drop in quality because of it. A work of art, truly!
Massively common, actually. The UEG perfected terraforming quite a while back. Even the glassed planets can be restored with time and effort (see Meridian and Reach) Even then, glassed ones like Harvest are still technically livable, they just...suck ass to live on. But thats never stopped humanity before.
@@dram906 Venus, Mars, and several of the Jovian moons in the Sol system alone have been made habitable via it. Plus, on planets that cant be, habitats were built on or above them. The 800+ settlements includes space stations, astroids, stuff like the Rubble in the Madrigal system, etc.
Okay, I am honestly LOVING how much love some of the dialogue from Halo Legends Origins is getting in lore videos like these. Another great video essay on one of my favorite IPs.
The greatest tragedy of the UNSC-Covenant/Human-Covenant War, was the fact that the entire thing was entirely avoidable. Something you didn't really explain here was that the honour obsessed Sangheli also questioned the need for essentially picking on the Humans. After all, although clearly technologically outmatched, the Humans stubbornly refused to surrender and fought with what could only be described as a tenacity defying the means of their physiology. Compared to several species in the Covenant, the Humans were physically weak and vulnerable. Slender, lithe things. Their technology was several thousand years behind the Covenant's by and large. After a while, the Sangheli ('Elites') had to accept a form of begrudging respect for the Humans. For such a technologically outclassed species to hurl itself into the jaws of death time and time again and never give up, won a certain level of acknowledgement from at least _some_ of the Sangheli. Others weren't so caring or compassionate; plenty of Sangheli during the war, were basically enjoying the thrill of the fight, wearing their supposed honour thinly as they massacred entire worlds. Without doubt, the Covenant committed an array of staggering atrocities against Humanity (Humanity was capable of cruelty to itself as much as the Covenant, though in reality, the Humans were mainly only able to defend and counterattack an invasive, militant aggressor whom had almost every possible advantage; and the only contact with the Covenant they had was with it's armed forces - whereas the Covenant directly murdered billions of Human civilians during the war) Yet the point still stands; some of the Covenant slowly developed a respect of sorts, for the Humans. Respect, won on the battlefield. Some of the Sangheli began to question the need to eradicate such a capable and spirited species as the Humans, whom clearly were doing fairly well against the full array of assault forces the Covenant had to offer. The Humans were going above and beyond. Anyone could infer that the Covenant's losses would have been far, far worse, had Humanity possessed the same technological advantages the Covenant had. In other words, even in a technologically inferior condition, and even though attacked out of the blue, the Humans still acquitted themselves with distinction and honour. 39 Billion Humans would perish in the war. 39 Billion lives which need not have been lost. Something rarely brought up regarding the Covenant, is how it _could_ have simply introduced itself to the Humans of the UNSC, by sending a peaceful delegation to it. There need not have been violence. There may even have been a request for cooperation and integration within the Covenant. Yet peace was never an option, with the conniving of the Prophets of the San-Shy'uum involved from the highest levels. Their duplicity and selfishness, cost their own mixed species peoples a horrific number of lives as well. Yes, Humanity suffered worse losses overall, though this shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone considering the technological disparity. For the Humans, it was a baptism of fire. The entire war need not have happened. Even had Humanity reacted poorly to the realisation of the Covenant on their periphery, and even had Humanity _rejected_ such a proposal (depending on how long the talks went on) and even had the Humans moved to protect themselves from the Covenant theoretically attacking them, there still need not have been violence. Yet because of what Humanity represented, they were seen as the anathema of the Prophets, the arch-enemy to be eliminated. When the Prophets even turned on the Elites, this betrayal of all the species of the Covenant, clicked for the Sangheli in the know. From that point on, the Covenant was living on borrowed time, grasping at straws. In a way, the Human-Covenant War was a proving ground for the UNSC and Humanity itself. Horrific numbers of innocents and combatants alike died. Vast damage was so cruelly wrought upon Humanity across the stars. Yet all of it, in spite of it's needlessness, was still *not in vain* for Humanity grew bolder and stronger. If anything, Humanity was catapulted violently and brutally, kicking and screaming, into a new age - where adapted Covenant and Forerunner tech, helped them to accelerate their own technological development. It can only have made Humanity stronger. It was a triumph over immense adversity. In the long view of Deep Time, Humanity did not deserve what happened to it during the Human-Covenant War in the slightest. They were merely defending themselves from outright Covenant invasion and the attempted genocide of the Human species/race. And in spite of all brutal losses, Huamnity came together and held the line. Sure, the Flood overrunning High Charity and the contemporaneous factional infighting within the Covenant going on as that was happening, weakened the strength and focus of the Covenant forces still engaged in warfare with the UNSC. Humanity fought bravely, though was hard-pressed to survive. Nevertheless, we must still give credit where it is rightfully due, and acknowledge that Humanity had put up such a respectable fight, that in spite of slowly being in the process of likely ending up losing the war by sheer attrition, the suspect nature of the claims of the Prophets, about how 'evil' Humanity supposedly was, rang falser and falser as every battle was fought. Something wasn't right. The species of the Covenant slowly understood this. Yet ironically, Humanity had cost the Covenant so dearly during the war so far, that this might not have changed the minds of a large proportion of the Covenant, because of the way Humanity had cost _them_ so much in what was supposed to be a walkover war against a bunch of technological primitives. Humanity worked wonders with what it had at it's disposal. No sacrifice was too great; no measure too severe. This is why a lot of Sangheli changed their minds about the Humans. Even though very large numbers of Sangheli fell in battle against the Spartans and Marines, they understood what Humanity was up against (better than Humanity did) And once the lies of the Prophets became obvious, the tenacity of Humanity could only have looked impressive whichever way it was looked at. Impressive, especially, because it was one species going up against multiple grouped together on an all out holy war against the Humans. In the short term, the war was disastrous. In the long-term, Humanity could stand tall and dust itself off, knowing it had done what it could under immense pressure. It was never a fair fight - and no, war isn't often about fair fights. Still, the Humans had every right to be annoyed at the Covenant member species for what they had done. I repeat: ~39 Billion human beings were killed in the war. That includes a _lot_ of Spartans. Most of them died too. John-117 was the hero and salvation Humanity needed. A symbol of hope. They never really stood much of a chance against the Covenant. But try telling Master Chief that... [cue the fastest flying brick in the West going through deliberate planetary re-entry headfirst]
You mentioned that the war could've been avoided several times. But that's not true at all and you even describe why it not true in your explanation aswell. The Prophets, the leading body of the Covenants recognized what humanity was from the first moment they saw them. There was not a world where the Covenant could exist alongside humanity, you even expertly explained why. So the only course of action to save the Covenant would be to kill humanity, hence a war was unavoidable. The only mistake the prophets made in all of this was not explaining why humanity had to go to the elites, because they feared any explanation close to the truth could reveal the whole truth, which would reveal the lie of the Covenant. But in reality, just explaining that we perversed forerunner technology would've been more than enough for the elites to follow, not to mention partly true with humanity being forerunner compatible. At the end of the day, it was only a lack of trust from the prophets that caused the elites to switch side. Honour would demand loyalty, but loyalty has to be earned. Something the prophets lost after being caught in deliberate but unnecessary lies one too many times. So no, the war wasn't at all avoidable in any way, shape or form. If you want the Earth-Covenant war done in the way you described it, then look at the original inspiration for the story. The Earth-Mimbari war. Entirely avoidable and tragic. The major difference is that they didn't have a spartan super soldier to carry them through the war.
There's just one thing to remember: humanity never had the option to surrender. The Covenant neither offered nor accepted surrenders. They exterminated every human world that they found, seeing no distinction between military and civilian. In response, the UNSC matched their enemy's cruelty. At the end of war, the NOVA bombs were developed and deployed as weapons of mass destruction. The NOVA detonations were some of the rare occasions when the UNSC successfully counterattacked the Covenant empire directly, wiping out entire inhabited worlds much akin to Covenant glassing. There is one more thing to remember. The Covenant had a technological advantage, it's true, but they did not have the numerical advantage. Throughout much of the war, the UNSC actually had more ships on hand, sustained by an enormous military-industrial complex that appeared comparable to that of the Covenant. The Human-Covenant War was akin to two superpowers going toe-to-toe, with the UNSC on the back foot from beginning to end. The war was unquestionably the largest and most devastating conflict that the Covenant had ever faced, as they (for the first time) fought an enemy that was as formidable as they were. The war lasted for 27 years partially because it took that long for the Covenant to build an armada (and then rebuild it after Admiral Cole blew the first one up).
If you think about it, in Halo 2, humanity LOST the war. The Covenant was ON Earth! We saw what happened to Reach, if the Covie’s weren’t so focused on the Forerunner artifact then Earth would have been glassed and heart of humanities government, administration, and military would have been annihilated. After 30 years of blood, sacrifice, and death… we lost. But we kept on fighting, because if we were going to go down... we're going down swinging.
The most intriguing part of this 20 year conflict is that it BUFFED TF out of humanity by the end of it. Humans and Covenant were basically on equal terms by the time the Infinity and it's new classes of ships were constructed ... And then Cortana happened ...
Human-Covenant war, flood, Bungie days were the golden era of Halo, This story was so epic and well thought out in terms of lore. This new crap 343 keeps shoving down our throats just doesn't stack up. That's why Halo has gone from being *THE* AAA title to irrelevant in just a few years. (Not even going to talk about the TV show) As an OG Halo fan, it hurts to see the franchise in this state.
Is it just me or does this kind of remind me of the Soviet, German front in WW2? One side overwhelming the other technologically and numeracly with the goal to exterminate them and the other initially fighting by pure weight of numbers before in the end, gaining the upper hand, numerically and technologically.
This Sci Fi Storytelling, the fictional war of Humanity against an Alien enemy species should work as an inspiration and point of reference to predict future conflicts and possible scenarios for many generations to come, just like the real wars that this planet endured in the past centuries, humanity could learn a lot to prevent this terrible scenarios of blood shed, and not just for the human species. Hehe, i'm going to far from this point but come one, even the greeks had stories to tell, the romans did, and we have creativity to create this fictional stories/characters based on that Primal Behaviour you good gentlement point in this video: The primal need for conflict. Thank you so much for creating this content. Already subscribed.
One question I've always had, how the fuck did the UEG miss the portal device burried under New Mombassa? They have a mega-city with an space elevator right there. That thing should have been found long ago.
The Forerunners buried it with baffler tech, alongside various other security measures, to ensure it was not found until "the right time". Presumably the near activation, and later destruction, of Instillation 04 sparked it to life.
Great video. I love every time this channel talks about Halo Lore. I also like to add that after the human covenant war the “Office of Naval Intelligence” (ONI) has sparked civil conflicts. Most specifically the sangheili/elites. Mainly because they’ve classified them as the main threat to human kind due to their expertise in combat. While the the prophets have just disappeared. after the reality of the covenant was exposed many of the species of the covenant have been hunting them down
If humanity would have had even basic energy shielding and more of its experimental weapons the war could have turned out much differently. Maybe humanity is still on a defensive fighting to delay but maybe more colonies could have survived. One thing I've wondered is what if the covenant didn't rely so heavily on glassing. Humanity was arguably on par if not more capable at ground combat than the covenant.
One could argue that no side has won. The Covernant was destroyed from the inside, leaving probably hundred of factions into a still ongoing civil war. While humanity survived it lost most of its planets, population and political organisation. Having a different political body before and after the war. But humanity as a whole has succeded in their primary goal of staying alive.
Not even sure how this started playing. I did play some pvp halo in college but that is the extent of my investment in the universe. Regardless, this sucked me in and I watched the entire presentation. Great job.
One thing I always wondered is why in the halo CE cutscene with the autum going to the ring being chased by covenant ships why does a blue and red plasma bolt fly past?
@@robertwalker5794 Tell that to 343, who handwaved away much of the lore and replaced it with their Marvel-esque "nothing can go wrong for the heroes" narrative.
@@WimsicleStranger ah yes because the entire population of new Phoenix getting composed, black team getting brutally killed, and earth getting conquered at the end of 5 was totally stuff going well for the heros
This conflict was so bloody and desperate that it makes me sad that Bungie never took the opportunity to make the series more gory and heavy toned. Reach felt like the only game where you, as the player, TRULY felt the desperate state Humanity was in. Also, not a huge fan of the direction 343 took the series to, as realistically it would take Humanity centuries to recover from such a conflict, yet in the games it takes a few short years
Imagine there being movies, like the Star Wars movies. If done right, such movies would be at least as good (if not better, IMO) than the Star Wars movies.
And then 343 hit the reset button and this grand, desperate tale basically doesn’t matter since the universe is basically in the same state as of Infinite
God I wonder if the new halo series would show the beginnings of the UNSC and describe more of the insurrection and the first encounter of the covenant
One thing that bothered me was that in 30 years of war humanity did almost nothing to close the technology gap. From day one humanity should have been furiously reverse engineering covenant tech. Yet by the fall of reach they were only just figuring out a personal shield. You could argue the Covenant was too advanced to figure out, but if so they’d have obliterated humanity with ease. At that start of the war UNSC rated they needed a 3:1 advantage in numbers to stand a chance in space combat. So the technology gap wasn’t that great. If the war had lasted 3-5 years one could see the humans struggling to catch up but 30 years should have seen amazing leaps in human technology. At the very least they should have figured out ship shields.
Honestly ? the single largest tech advantage the covenant had was shields. Pull that from the covenant and I think most naval engagements would have required a 1.5 to 1 ratio. Macs slayed once they were pass the energy shields. Archer missiles did as well. Second, you have to make the tech, but also implement it. The warships on either side were between 600 meters long to over a klick on the common side. Some rarer examples were over 4 kilometers. And even then, it wasn't that the UNSC couldn't make plasma, or energy shields. Its the power requirements they had issues meeting. I think another issue that may have come in was Cole protocol which forbade bringing covenant tech back to any of the colonies
The forerunner-flood-humanity war on the other hand... The battle of the Maginot Sphere outshines the battle of Terra. Not to mention literally cleansing the galaxy of all lifeforms.
@@ZAR556 No, ancient humans and Forerunners have even been at war. TLDR, possible spoiler if you wanna discover the story in other ways The precursors ruled the galaxy with basically transcendent tech, had a principle called the "mantle" to protect life and shit, and awarded it to ancient humanity. Forerunner got mad and started a war against the precursors. Despite being superior, the precursors basically disappeared and the forerunner ruled. Fast forward and the ancient humans find some sort of old ships with weird powder that make their pets better. But the pets became the flood. The humans tried everything to get rid of it, and started invading/glassing some forerunners worlds, who saw that as an act of aggression. The humans managed to find a temporary cure for the flood, which retreated outside the galaxy, while the forerunners finished off the humans and reverted us back go prehistoric tech. The flood came back though and the forerunners were overwhelmed. They designed an AI, mendicant bias, to combat the flood, but it defected after a conversation with the primordial, the last remaining precursor. The forerunners, losing battle after battle, created 12 halo rings, but most were destroyed. They then created 7 new, smaller ones (the 7th is actually a retrofitted one from the 12 OGs), and after a few desperate last stands, fired the halos and wiped all life in the galaxy. Then automated "backups" reseeded life across the galaxy. Humanity, but also elites, prophets, etc... restarted from scratch. But the forerunners sacrificed themselves, save for a select few such as the didact, antagonist of Halo 4.
@@evoluxman9935 @Evoluxman thanks, for nice and short explanation, man. I'm rather new in this,, it fascinating me how Human got beat down almost extinct but still manage to bounce back.
I wish there was a little more information out there about the conflict between the UNSC and the Separatists before the Human-Covenant war took over, ngl
I doubt that there is a lot to talk about there. The outer colonies just wanted to become independent from the distant core colonies and establish their own government and started a civil war when this was denied. There is not much else that happened.
We hope you've enjoyed our week of Halo content! But we talk about the worldbuilding of this series and others pretty frequently on our Twitter! Follow us over there to join the conversation! twitter.com/TemplinEdu
Do one on naruto
Thanks!
Do you plan to do an aftermath video of the war? What happened briefly?
Avery Johnson was the only human to witness both the beginning and end of the Human-Covenant War, as he was present when Harvest was attacked and saw the Prophet of Truth's death, which signified the end of the war. He was also the first human to kill a member of the Covenant.
And depending on if you consider the end of the war to be Truth's dead, he saw the last human killed during it too (Miranda Keyes, by Truth himself).
Plus he survived installation 04 (halo ce), wow!
Still... wished he survived to see the peace... and maybe pimp slap Palmer in Halo 4.
On the Covenant side, the first one to kill a human was, of all things, an Engineer throwing a rock.
That mad lad Spartan 1 was a great man
Absolutely a human victory. For the Covenant this was a war of extermination, for Humanity it was a war for survival. based on the war goals, human victory. A pyhrric victory no doubt. you don't go from 800~ colonies down to a few dozen and call it a complete win, but humanity SURVIVED.
Yeah, pyrhrric victory is definitely the best description of it
I also do like how after the war Lord Hood returned control of the Earth government to civilian rule
That and the covenant collapsed into a brutal civil war, lost basically it's entire leadership, and left Humanity as the dominant force in the galaxy.
@@Spongebrain97 which was an absolutely stupid thing to do
@@Aden_III a lesson they are now learning the hard way. Funny how we knew they were incompetent given how they handled the Insurrection.
"The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength."
One of the most beautiful speeches given by Londo mollari.
I was actually thinking how similar the Earth-Mimbari war and the Earth-Covenant war seemed to be.
@@starcraft2own I sometimes would wonder if the halo story writers were B5 fans.
@@DomR1997 both were, at core, holy wars, so very likely.
@@CortexNewsService B5 had such a huge influence on sci fi culture and people don't even know about it. It breaks my heart. Deserves more recognition, thank God for this remake and that remaster on hbo. Hell, it's even inspired a couple of my own original short stories. I wish I had some way to ask the old bungie heads.
"In my life, I have never seen anything like it; They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself, never surrendering."
It is the most interesting element of Halo's story to me that it starts in a position of imminent total defeat. Before the game, humanity is losing disastrously - the outcome of every battle is either a loss on the ground due to overwhelming numbers, or a victory on the ground followed by an opponent with orbital supremacy rendering the planet uninhabitable. The vast majority of all worlds have been lost. The priority of all military forces is not to win, but to spend lives as dearly as possible and keep the enemy from finding the homeworld and ending the war. Humanity became so desperate that it gambled 50% of its entire remnant military strength on what is, objectively, a suicide mission with incredibly low odds of success. This mission became a comprehensive defeat when Reach, the host planet for the assembled forces, was invaded by a force so dramatically superior that they were annihilated within days. Humanity's last insane hope to stave off defeat has failed utterly, and the Pillar of Autumn is fleeing from the ashes.
This is where you, the player, start the story.
It a little 40k ish isn’t it.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 imperiums never even come close to being that threatened Terra might be but they always got another spare million worlds as they say
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646
more like every battle the UNSC has is the equivalent of cadia falling in terms of disastrous consequences
the imperium has a better success chances that what the UNSC hed initially
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 fhe imperium is the most powerful thinf in the galaxy tho
The chosen one to save the day, not doing so because of our own ability but because the story dictates it as so
Dear Humanity,
We regret being alien bastards.
We regret coming to Earth.
And we most definitely regret that the Corps just blew up our raggedy-ass fleet!
OOH-RAH!!!
- Prophet of Regret's Final Transmission
Oorah!
"Regret is a name, Sergeant. The name of one the Covenants religious leaders; a Prophet.
He's on that carrier, and he's calling for help."
OOH-RAH
"I can't forgive you for what you did, but I can thank you for standing by his side till the end."
my honor to be the 117th like
“Were it so easy.”
Thel 'Vadam - The Arbiter
_For us, the storm has passed. the war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure ... sacrifice, and unshakable conviction that their fight; our fight, was elsewhere. As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten." -Lord Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood_ The Human-Covenant War was greatly crafted. Though while that war is over, another has begun.
Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood*
That cutscene gives me goosebumps every time
@@TheArrowedKneeshit brings a tear to my eye
What a great speech in all of entertainment.. hard to find another to match it.. even in real life
This is one of my favorite sci-fi conflicts because I feel like it only ever deals in shades of grey. Especially so since the first halo game. The Fall of Reach is just such an excellent book at illustrating a conflict wherein humans are outmatched, but not defenceless, overwhelmed but not beaten, and most of all, it helps with the timescale of the conflict. Some of the other lore adds to it too. By the end of the war you have a military in which many of its members have only ever known a time of war with the covenant. It also adds in an element of realism with the idea behind the Cole protocol. Space is so vast that if humanity makes every effort to hide where their worlds are, as numerous as they may be, they can buy quite a lot of time for themselves. I think halo always struck a good balance between the classic trope of sci-fi aliens that have overwhelming technology to the point of being completely untouchable, and the other classic sci-fi trope that humans are completely on par with aliens. Halo takes a middle ground, and a nuanced one at that. Where humans are inferior overall, but not in every aspect, and are outclassed, but still have the staying power to put up a good long fight. It's refreshing in the world of sci fi. And then of course in the books, you get a really good sense of grey morality that creeps in so often during wartime. More and more "evil" decisions are made by human leaders as they get more and more desperate. The Spartan 2 & 3 programs for example. The military takeover of the government. Plus a whole number of ONI operations. In my opinion Halo's subplot is about the sacrifices we are willing to make to win, and how after all is said and done, there's usually not much left to lord over anyway. The UNSC at the end of the classic era is a shadow of its former self, and although poised for a lot of regrowth, it has a whole myriad of problems it ignored for the sake of the war effort. Insurrectionists, or their evolution being the primary one. Plus an absolutely devastated economy and civilian population.
Nice analysis!
But the spartan 2 program was made stomp out rebellions of humans, not made for the war.
Also the UEG nuked their own citizens. The war didn't make them more desperate, they were terrible before.
This wasn't morally grey, one side was pure evil and the other side tried to survive.
@@nobleman9393 The Covenant wasn't pure evil. They were a group of species working peacefully (internally, at least) towards a common goal while humanity was one species threatening universal balance and peace, so you could say that the Human-Covenant war was actually a "police action" like the Gulf War. You can also compare the Covenant to the NATO and humanity to China.
@@richerd4266 Err, no?
If the Gulf War had turned into a deliberate attempt at mass genocide via nuking population centres, the 'police action' would have rightly been called evil.
@@richerd4266 If by Peacefully you mean conquest and subjugation...
It is incredible how you can take a game plot and turn it into literary gold.
You can thank Eric Nylund and one of the writers from Microsoft for that. I kid you not, if Bungie had their way, none of the lore we know today would have existed, Halo would have been a self contained game.
We would have lost out on this. Im glad they went the way they did.
@@KillerOrca It's not only great because you get told a fantastic space opera but also the fact that good lore can keep your game / movie alive for much longer.
The amount of Halo lore master's out there who just talk about the extended universe is a testament to that.
I mean it doesn't hurt that the storyline is pretty banger on its own.
The book Fall of Reach was written to be published alongside Halo CE in 2001.
There were people that intended Halo to be a platform for story telling early on, but as already mentioned Bungie didn't want that to be the case. One thing I'm glad Bungie didn't get their way with.
And ever more incredible that all the overpayed 343 employees cant write a good story if their lives depended on it
There is one more detail to note about the Human-Covenant War: specifically, what happened in the final year of the war, 2552. That is when the war entered its final and most cataclysmic stage.
Before 2552, with rare exceptions, the war was defined by engagements of only a few dozen vessels on either side at a maximum. It was a war of attrition which the Covenant pursued relentlessly. The UNSC rarely fought pitched battles if they had a choice, conserving forces where they could, and continued to lose territory. Critical worlds such as Earth and Reach were so heavily fortified and defended that they were considered safe from Covenant attack. The Covenant rarely sustained casualties, particularly of larger capital ships, but continued to whittle down the UNSC bit by bit with each engagement.
That all changed in 2552 with Sigma Octanus, when the UNSC committed forty ships and numerous Spartans to defend Sigma Octanus, defeating a Covenant fleet at a high cost. This started a catastrophic chain of events where the bulk of the UNSC and Covenant fleets engaged each other in several decisive battles. The UNSC Navy was virtually wiped out, numbering perhaps two hundred to three hundred warships total, but in return, the Covenant's losses were enormous. Between Sigma Octanus, Reach, Halo, the Unyielding Hierophant, Earth, Onyx, High Charity and other engagements, the Covenant lost well over a thousand warships and countless millions of troops fighting against the UNSC.
In essence, the vast majority of the Covenant military was destroyed in just a few months. The mutual destruction of the UNSC and Covenant fleets really shouldn't be overlooked, as they set the stage for the collapse of the Covenant shortly thereafter.
Dont forget the Battle of Psi Serpentus though...
The sacrifice of the men and women of the UNSC really was worth it in the end...
@@KillerOrca The NOVA bomb truly is the stuff of nightmares.
Uh... Are we forgetting about the massive Covenant fleet that orbited around High Charity that numbered _in the thousands..._ That fleet wasnt destroyed and even a tenth of that fleet couldve wiped out Humanity.
Your alternate retelling of the truth is cute though, I guess... But anyone not smoking the copium knows that Humanity was lost if not for plot armor. Humanity was only fighting a small fraction of the Covenant and still getting its 🍑handed to it.
@@ICU1337yeah if the full might of the covenant was focused only on humanity, we would’ve had absolutely been overwhelmed within 5-10 years
The human-covenant war was so bloody. Love all the halo content
Literally made the casualty count of the *entire* long 19th century look like a minor skirmish
It is also one of those few wars in popular fiction where Humanity was on the losing side. Only the Earth/Minbari War (Babylon 5) comes to mind on such terms.
@@DocWolph the only scifi off the top of my head where humanity is the empire bullying aliens is 40k
@@keisufederationmapping2748
There two more for humans being the bully.
- "Enders game" Humanity went from bullied to ruthless murdering bully.
- Star Trek (Mirror, Mirror universe, although most universe as well but subversively)
@@DocWolph the galactic empire in star wars was also very human supremacist
In one of the books, human insurrectionists actually had a bit of a black market of translated Covenant weapons (as in, the the ammo counters were translated to human characters), which pissed the Covenant off so much that they literally ignored the squad of Spartan 3s to instead focus on the heretical humans. Lol.
The attritional warfare reminds me of the Russian and Chinese fronts of WW2. Truly, a dire situation.
Reminds*
@@Jpeg.g Oh, you... 😅
@@Terranallias18 More like a ww1 navy versus a ww2 navy. Outmanned and outgunned...
Likewise another accurate example I think would be the Paraguayan War.
@@Foreign0817 Though never outclassed!
When the war is about genocide, not getting killed is victory.
Dam
It's a matter of degree, I think victory isn't complete until you rebuild.
True. If it were not for the Great Schism humanity would've been erased.
@seekingabsolution1907 no no its not at all. The war goals set out by the covenant was total eradication. Human strength is low readiness is low, but billions have survived the covenant isnt.
The saddest thing about the Human-Covenant War is the fact that the entire thing was based on a lie, one designed solely to uphold a demonstrably false belief system.
They say truth is the first casualty of war.
Most wars are like that, dogma and stealing resources
@@REIVAXMEELAS unfortunately he was the final one
All religions are false.
that feels very familiar to so many wars on earth too.
Realistically if we didn't count 343 Industries's lore the Nation of the UNSC after the Human-Covenant would be in shambles, the Navy ruined for decades to come, the economy crashing down like a stone in water, and with so much of the percentage of the population dead, the all of a sudden revival of the navy in hundreds wouldn't have occurred from a realistic stand point with all those Forerunner advancements it would take decades for them to be properly integrated into major production centers and economic purposes. The nation would be in recovery mode for likely a century.
The nation is likely lucky that it hasn't become a authoritarian state yet after the war that ONI may like it to be in universe with all these factors.
You my friend need to read the Kilo-5 trilogy! It answers all of these questions and more!
I think that humanity is now on the opposing side of quality quantity equation, and form what I heard ONI is actually destabilising situation among other racer as humanity is outnumbered
Worth noting that, while a star ship might have a pricetag in the multiple billions, that money is not transmuted into FTL capable vessels - all the money to build them goes into the economies. A nation has this funny relationship with debt - well, funny compared to us individual mortals. It doesn't matter if it has to take on massive amounts of debt - it will either survive as a nation to see it paid off, or it will collapse and the debt doesn't matter anymore, which means creditor groups have a very vested interest in seeing the success of the nation that owes them.
With the money now acquired, it can start spending it, and it needs to spend it quickly - in fact, it almost wants to be wasting money, it wants to spend it so quickly, all so that it can accomplish two things:
[1] Get industry to keep cranking out product
[2] Make the money move.
The important thing for an economy is NOT to have money - having money is almost as bad as having no money - it's to make money *move* through the economy. When you put 1k in your mattress for a rainy day, that money may as well have been destroyed, as far as the economy is concerned, since it's not being traded for goods or services.
Now, does this make other problems later? Almost certainly - hyper-inflation can happen if it's not done with at least SOME tact, or people can lose confidence in the currency outright if horrifically mismanaged; and those are just the extremes on top of a few other issues. Are those risks and downsides worth the tradeoff of preventing total economic collapse? Well, the answer is obvious when the choice is between "certain demise" and "shitty times with a chance of demise."
Dont know about that. Many older defense structures and assets could have been scrapped to make new things.
(Why maintain a big ship if you can scrap it and use half salvage tech to build half of it?).
Also while their foundries would have taken a hit, their core planets remained. And this means that the bulk of their economic might survived.
Most of the recovery was thanks to the integration of forerunner and covenant technologies. Humanity still hasn't truly recovered from the war as only a few worlds have been resettled but with the tech gained from the war the glassed worlds like reach could be habitable again in a few decades instead of centuries
One thing this video really puts into perspective, is the absolute tragedy of the Halo mythos. Even after the war, there still wasn’t peace. Everyone lost. Billions died, all just so more war and chaos could follow.
In a weird way, this feels almost as grim dark as the 40k universe. However, in a much more realistic way. The fact that it’s set to a melancholic piano, just sets the perfect tone.
This isn’t a glorious triumph of humanity. It’s the feeling of just, having survived.
The halo universe is like WW1 and WW2 in space, both wars were meant to bring peace to the world, instead, they brought everlasting war and tension.
40k is so far beyond horrible it becomes hilarious.
Halo is a kind of horrible you shudder at, because you see how it could actually happen.
Arguably, the UNSC won the fight as it came out of the conflict intact, but heavily scared and battered. Though it would no doubt have been wiped out had the truth never been revealed.
No shit... Humans could hold their ground on land... But little can they do with a technologically superior coalition that can destroy a Planet from space
@@JoeMartinez18 Agreed. Though it was not simply the element of being technologically superior, but also holding a religious zeal that drove the Covenant. Broken, only by a prophet that applauded destruction, a protect that was cruel in spreading discord, and a prophet that was masking his intentions with lies. Shattered, by those who knew the truth, those who were shown the truth, and those who had lived with the truth.
Unless the definition suddenly changed two weeks ago, "intact" would be the very last word to use regarding describing Humanity in Halo.
@@scorpixel1866 I agree that intact may not have been the right choice of word to use but given that by the end of the war a united force that was driven by both political and religious beliefs to exterminate humanity had broken out into civil war and was shattered while the UNSC was still united and endured by the wars end than intact, in that context, would indeed be the right word to choose.
This is one of the most devastating wars for earth and humanity ever created in fiction
well…..
@@kreimer1702 it is
Someone has yet to encounter 40k
@@solorhypercane5041 what about 40k?
@@CarsonRH i meant, except universes like 40k, because they are just overkill
Having never played Halo, the story seems almost like dramatisation of a Stellaris game; UNE goes up against Spirtualist Awakened Empire and its vassal states, with both sides getting blindsided by Prethoryan.
quite close in fact.
Pretty damn accurate
I hate how accurate that is
I've actually played a few roleplay games with mods for halo and its great.
When you colonize a holy Gaia world:
"..."History is written by the Victors". Perhaps he was correct for his time, though one would be hard pressed to find any true victors in the conflict against the Covenant. The trials of our great war are burnt into the surface of almost every human colony, our worlds reduced to ash, once defended by a faithful few against insurmountable odds. Perhaps now it is more correct to say that history is written by the survivors, whether victorious or not."
Still my favorite quote from the "Halo: Heroes Never Die" shorts.
"History is written by the victors" is never correct regardless of time. But yes, Halo got it right. Survivors write history, regardless of side they fought with.
@@redaug4212 Yeah, the Lost Cause myth is still going long after the Confederacy lost the American Civil War.
@@bindukopparapu2795 Or the fall of Rome. We villainize the Barbarians and Empires who destroyed the Roman Empire even though they won.
I always love the lore of halo, like forerunner-flood war, but specially the human-covenant war since start to end, what a bloody And devastating war this was
There's a reason the Human-Covenant War is also known as the Great War. The death toll possibly surpasses all of the wars combined in Human history. As for the Covenant, despite it's might, it was just another empire, and just like all empires, they eventually fall one way or another. Thank you for uploading this on UA-cam.
There's really no "possibly" about it. Tens of billions died during the conflict at an absolute minimum. At Reach alone, the UNSC lost several hundred million troops. An entire Covenant species (Skirmishers) went extinct during that battle due to the cataclysmic losses against the UNSC. That's just one battle in a war that lost 27 years.
@@Cailus3542 well, endangered, but good point.
Covenant lost
Over 40 billion troops
Humans
Lost 23 billion
@@Cailus3542 What's even more frightening is that the 40 billion corresponds to about 2/3rds of the Covenant. So even thought Humanity lost possibly 80-90% (I refuse to believe that Humanity lost only 50% of her population. That's just not possible from the amount of devastation that they had to endure) of her overall population, the Covenant were clearly destroying themselves just to kill the Humans.
If Humanity had held for a few more years (maybe even a decade), it's very possible that The Covenant may literally have run out of manpower. It goes to show how insane the San'Shayuum were to even consider this to be only option.
But what makes this so scary, is that the Humans had NO IDEA. There was no way for them to know any of this. As far as they were aware, it seemed that the Covenant had literally trillions of souls it could feed into its war machine, and they weren't even after thirty years of intense fighting, they had nothing to show for it.
I was mainly talking about the lives lost on Humanity's side with the death toll exceeding 23 billion.
I just have to take a minute to appreciate how perfect the narrator is at these videos
I have to agree ill admit I wasnt too happy when larissa left and was very skeptical but I can whole heartedly say that I was proven wrong, he does an absolutely phenomenal job and I seriously think you couldnt get anyone better
Correction: the destruction of the unyielding hierophant came AFTER the destruction of the first Halo ring, happening between the events of Halo CE and Halo 2, not before
Uneven Elephant? Looks more like two squids kissin'.
As a kid it was always felt impactful to me how the Elites found out they were being lied to and joined with the humans. I distinctly remember in Halo 2 rooting for the Elites, Grunts, and Hunters during the Covenant schism lol
Oh look, another alien loving traitor
@@Aden_III yep
Regardless the elites could never be trusted and they have to answer for the crimes they committed against humanity fuck them
@@unclesam5230 seems like there’s a lot of them these days
Humanity pushing past their bigotry and being able to work with Alien species again, partially due to a desperate need to integrate their tech into Human tech, is a testament to their durability in-universe. They deserve the mantle.
In the end it was a Civil War of their enemies that saved Humanity and ultimately the Galaxy
A civil war that got sparked because of disillusionment caused by the human-covenant war.
Humanity's fighting spirit were the catalyst for the civil war.
The Sangheili constantly questioned the Prophets on why Humans were not taken into the Covenant's ranks considering that they were extremely resilient against them.
@@Saicofake or the fact humans were also shown to have honor and Valor, laying down their lives so others can escape accepting 1 on 1 fights they know they almost certainly couldn't win self sacrifice to achieve an objective, all of this also confused the shangheli a species built on such principles
This was good, but I think High Command is at its strongest when it analyzes specific battles and tactics, rather than simply explaining a war in general. I'd like to see more unit maneuvers and detailed events in these videos.
Dw bro. It takes lots of time and effort to do all these. Plus, they've done a video like this in the past anyway. To be fair, it was like 3 years ago, so they don't want to repeat the same things too much
Earth doesn't need a hero, it needs a saviour.
Earth needed a savior, humanity needed a hero. They got both in the same green armour.
Jesus is our Savior. Amen 🙏
@@spiffygonzales5899 You're too old for imaginary friends.
That said, Jesus in some Mark V armor would certainly make the Cleansing of the Temple a lot more entertaining.
@@spiffygonzales5899 atheism is a religion like ‘off’ is a TV channel.
@@spiffygonzales5899
Literal Dictionary definiton of Atheism < Random youtuber's opinion.
GG bro.
This war was so absolutely devastating for humanity, I can never realistically see humanity trying to make friends with ANY other sentient organisms in the near future. Xenophobia would be rampant even if it was more logical to realize the benefit of making allies during the Flood crisis, especially since the attackers were a coalition of multiple alien species. I'd imagine the UNSC would go full Greater Terran Union mode and would likely work towards destroying all species of the Covenant regardless of the fact that the Covenant was proved to be a religion of lies.
If any, the human-covenant war would have made humanity realise that making alien allies is crucial.
Unless Humanity figures a way to quickly repopulate their colonies and upgrade their technologies, fighting future alien enemies without alien allies would spell disaster.
I would say it would be very xenophobic to all member race of the covenant (except the Sangheili but would likely still have some level of distrust). It would likely treat future first contact with high level of suspicion and look a lot more inward for the next couple of generation to rebuild and lower contact with other aliens
In the Halo Canon the UEG/UNSC have made an Alliance with the Swords of Sanghelios.
To be fair: ONI does come pretty close to xenophobia a lot of times, from making a strain of inedible Sangheili crop that would kill off the edible strains and starve them, to also keeping the Sangheili embroiled in civil war.
@@thebastard890 I always found this to be a gross misstep by ONI. The Sangheili were probably the ONLY alien species that was accepting of the Humans.
Burning bridges with the Sangheili is absolutely stupid.
The scene at 6:16 … I hadn’t seen that one before, and when coupled with the narration just before it -“…the marital spirit of humanity… “ - for some reason just hit me with such force I ain’t afraid to say I shed a few tears.
It puts you in mind of the many wars humanity has fought with similar stakes: one of these sides won’t exist by the end. And when that when that burden of survival falls so heavily, and then when soldiers fight so fiercely for just a chance that those behind them might live…
The scene has a lone UNSC soldier firing ineffectually against and elite’s armor. He knows that one hit from that squires will end him and he has no means to make that hit not kill. He dodges and fires again, hoping to end the foe before he is ended. When he is disarmed with such casual ease, he doesn’t slump to his knees and see his demise with despair. He doesn’t wail in fear. He tackles the elite to the ground. The marital spirit of humanity - the drive to be the one to survive.
Its from the cutscenes of Halo Wars. Check them out
My favorite analogous scene is seeing a bunch of ODSTs clamber onto a Brute Chieftain in order to finally take him out.
Speaking of which, both that scene & the Forge vs Arbiter scene end with a knife strike.
The covenant, with their superior tech and unified purpose, outnumbered, outgunned, and out maneuvered the UNSC but could not account for that one strange human attribute .... "Luck"
That and the UNSC Spartans nasty tendency to throw sticky gernades back in their face.
Plot armor is one hell of a weapon
Edit: Looks like Humanity's Humor also fell along with reach
@@takebacktheholyland9306 Nah it makes sense that they lost. This quote is extremely arrogant considering that the UNSC would have been completely eradicated if the Sangheili did not join their side. The Elites and Thel'Vadam specifically saved humanity's ass.
@@Mediados exactly! the schism happened partially as a result of the Elites questioning the need to exterminate humanity. to many of them, humanity had shown its prowess and were worthy of joining the covenant. The prophets responded to this questioning of their authority by giving ever increasing favor to the brutes. which further hurt the prophet-elite relations.
@@rwagingsloth9528 That's the reason why I personally don't really support the UNSC. Officially the are allied with the Swords and support their cause of unifying Sanghelios under Vadam, but on the other hand they let ONI just capture and torture Sangheili to develop bioweapons. Where the Arbiter has proven to be honorable and cooperative, humans sharpen the knife they keep to stab him in the back if he becomes too powerful.
@@Mediados The actions of the Sangheli during the great schism were NOT altruistic. the Sangheli respected humanity, but that doesn't mean they hesitated to glass entire planets, and bring humanity to its knees. Oni is definitely a "evil" for the greater good of humanity kind of organization, but they were not wrong to fear the Sangheli in the aftermath of the Human-Covenant war. i doubt humanity knew the extent of the dmg the covenant civilian populations sustained in the great schism, for all they knew the Sangheli could rearm for another war while humanity was still recovering
In the books, you feel a grim resolve growing after every defeat to fight to the last man to prove that if nothing else, humanity did not go quietly into the night.
I remember when CE came out and my friend and I were reading the little book that came with it explaining the backstory. It referred to the Chief as a cyborg lol.
We were both huge fans of Star Trek at the time and the Dominion War arc in particular because the idea of a WWII style conflict in space was so awesome to 11 year old us. When Halo dropped and we read the "your destruction is the will of the gods" line in the booklet and how the Covenant just started wrecking humanity's shit without reason or negotiation, it blew our goddamn minds. In CE the Covenant were truly alien and their motivation for wiping out humanity was still mysterious. The Dominion had been our favorite alien enemy and the moment the Covenant came up with Halo they were the new favorite by a long shot.
Even 20 years later now, I still love the Covenant and the lore surrounding the war. It is unlike anything else in sci-fi.
Anyone else physically contract when he said "John one-seventeen"?
Man it's crazy to me that after after 25 year conflict humans would still want to have a civil war after almost being eradicated
Humanity hasn't changed in the 500 years its been among the stars.
Why would this be any different?
Just like in Real life.
Humanity doesnt want to fight, leaders do, to fullfill their own ideals and values
Human victory. They survived even with heavy losses, their main goal was to survive. Damaged but survived.
The more I learn about the Human Covenant War the more depressed it makes me feel, the games are great but I feel like they never truly capture the sheer brutality of the War, I think Reach and ODST are the games that best capture that feeling.
The Covenant have some really great weapons and Ship and Vehicle designs, The UNSC stuff is good but I always find myself using The Covenant stuff more
Funny enough I have the same opinion but switch Covenant and Humans
And forerunners weapon on top. But for bungy era games UNSC weapons go first.
@@placeholdername3818
I like the chopper as well, You can't beat that
Just started a modded Stellaris game as the Covenant
Personally I really love the Covenant, and now that it's shattered I like the Swords of Sanghelios much more than humans and the UNSC.
That line from HALO Legends gave me chills.
One of my favorite details of the entire Halo universe is the fact that the Elites started to question the human extermination.
Gotta hand it to the Forerunners not to leave any accesible relics on the surface of Earth for humans to advance quickly. If only they had more time or at least left us a single AI.
Or even Ancient Human technology given how the entirety of the orion-arm was the home territory of humanity for millions years and then the forerunners to.
@@My19922 How unfortunate the Didact really was thorough in devolving humans.
I can't help but wonder if the Human-Covenant war was roughly based on the Byzantine-Sassanian war of 602-628AD. They're about the same duration, and both have inflection points at a key location (Reach falling to the Covenant, Antioch falling to the Persians) which was later retaken at great cost.
Both end with each side utterly devastated, with Roman Syria and Judaea falling to the Rashidun caliphate just under a decade after their war with the Persians ended, vaguely like the UNSC loss of the outer colonies. Could just be coincidence, or maybe the writers looked to history for inspiration.
Nice historical parallel, perhaps the rashidun are a stand in for the flood as they completely conquered the sassinids or covenant in this case while the Romans or humans held on in a greatly weakened state
You have to wonder how much of the Covenant's power was lost during the Great Schism. You're looking at the Covenant's largest fleet and its center of government tearing itself apart in a matter of hours. The battle over Delta Halo had to have been the single most crippling moment for the Covenant military in the whole war, even more than Operation First Strike.
That's actually a really interesting thing to think about. When you look at the statistics, we know that at the end of the war, the Covenant lost 40 Billion souls, but there's no evidence that Humanity is the one who inflicted all those losses. It's very possible that the extremely brutal civil war could've constituted the majority of those losses, and that's not taking into account the loss of life to the Flood when it reach High Charity.
In addition to this I recommend doing the Swords of Sanghelios and political situation of Sanghelios after the war.
So happy you are covering this and I love halo lore. Thank you
The story as a whole is one of betrayal, lies, and genocide. It’s a story of perseverance, bravery, sacrifice. God halos universe is so fleshed out. It’s so full of secrets and mysteries that have yet to be solved. It’s my favorite sci-fi ever. It’s comparable to none.
To be honest , even when humanity is always a victim in nearly every fantasy futuristic universe, its always nice to see they keep fighting against all odds , even when this Covenant look like a race which would perfectly fit in the warhammer 40k universe to replace to Tau ..
Now thats a take I haven't seen before.
Hey, what's wrong with the Tau??
They're Communist Weaboos
@@starcraft2own they are literally the tau. a coalition of different races under a oppressive caste system working together for a common goal.
@@loadingerror9975 They're hardly 'Literally the tau' when they have a completely different belief system and actively opress and pushing every living thing within their reach. There is no "Greater good" in the covenant. The tau are far more than "A coalition of races" but sure. Literally the tau.
Of minor note; Harvest, ironically enough, isnt actually the "most distanct" colony distance wise. Its actually closer to Earth than quite a few other colonies (a mere 12 light years).
However, because slipspace is FUCKY, getting to it can take ages, meaning its "technicaly" an outer colony.
(Bit of retconing on several peoples part as the UEG was supposed to be far smaller than the 800+ settlements it later had)
Qㅂ베
Crazy part is before the halos we’re fired in the previous era humans and the covenant prophet race were literally best friends but that info was lost to time but the humans literally fought like 8 different races at once just nuts
The Cole Protocol was so-named after Rear Admiral Cole (who is also the hero of Harvest, having won the Campaign for Harvest after those 5 years of desperate combat). After witnessing the dogged determination of the Covenant to eradicate every human, man, woman and child, and the resources they put forth to destroy the species as a whole, made the UEG and UNSC to create said protocol as a means of ensuring that, upon contact with the Covenant, they would destroy any relevant data to the location of Earth and her most valuable colonies/military installations.
Especially when considering that there are many notable times in which the Covenant have attempted to hack into and crack InfoSec of the UNSC and the various subdivisions of the Military Arm of the UNSC.
Thus concern, all the way back during the first initial years of the conflict, necessitated a scorched earth policy with regards to slipspace data and travel and randomization of evacuation vectors if pursued by Covenant assets.
Love the human Covenant war because of how unique it is. Humanity had to win through it one consistent strength, intelligence and counter-intelligence
In the words of Lord Hood, "War, war never changes."
It is a testament to the quality of both Halo's soundtrack and the Institutes writing and editing that this video has the same notes played on repeat for over ten minutes and has no drop in quality because of it. A work of art, truly!
The Covenant wanted Humanity extinct, Humanity wanted to survive. The Covenant fell apart, Humanity's still around. I'd say we won.
Man they lost so many worlds rendered useless. Idk how common habitable world's are in this universe but that is a major loss I would think.
Massively common, actually. The UEG perfected terraforming quite a while back. Even the glassed planets can be restored with time and effort (see Meridian and Reach)
Even then, glassed ones like Harvest are still technically livable, they just...suck ass to live on. But thats never stopped humanity before.
@@KillerOrca ok thankyou I thought all the colonies were planets found habitable. I did not know they terraformed them.
@@dram906 Venus, Mars, and several of the Jovian moons in the Sol system alone have been made habitable via it.
Plus, on planets that cant be, habitats were built on or above them. The 800+ settlements includes space stations, astroids, stuff like the Rubble in the Madrigal system, etc.
Okay, I am honestly LOVING how much love some of the dialogue from Halo Legends Origins is getting in lore videos like these. Another great video essay on one of my favorite IPs.
Vice admiral Preston Cole, we need a dossier on this legend
The greatest tragedy of the UNSC-Covenant/Human-Covenant War, was the fact that the entire thing was entirely avoidable. Something you didn't really explain here was that the honour obsessed Sangheli also questioned the need for essentially picking on the Humans. After all, although clearly technologically outmatched, the Humans stubbornly refused to surrender and fought with what could only be described as a tenacity defying the means of their physiology. Compared to several species in the Covenant, the Humans were physically weak and vulnerable. Slender, lithe things. Their technology was several thousand years behind the Covenant's by and large.
After a while, the Sangheli ('Elites') had to accept a form of begrudging respect for the Humans. For such a technologically outclassed species to hurl itself into the jaws of death time and time again and never give up, won a certain level of acknowledgement from at least _some_ of the Sangheli. Others weren't so caring or compassionate; plenty of Sangheli during the war, were basically enjoying the thrill of the fight, wearing their supposed honour thinly as they massacred entire worlds.
Without doubt, the Covenant committed an array of staggering atrocities against Humanity (Humanity was capable of cruelty to itself as much as the Covenant, though in reality, the Humans were mainly only able to defend and counterattack an invasive, militant aggressor whom had almost every possible advantage; and the only contact with the Covenant they had was with it's armed forces - whereas the Covenant directly murdered billions of Human civilians during the war) Yet the point still stands; some of the Covenant slowly developed a respect of sorts, for the Humans. Respect, won on the battlefield.
Some of the Sangheli began to question the need to eradicate such a capable and spirited species as the Humans, whom clearly were doing fairly well against the full array of assault forces the Covenant had to offer. The Humans were going above and beyond. Anyone could infer that the Covenant's losses would have been far, far worse, had Humanity possessed the same technological advantages the Covenant had. In other words, even in a technologically inferior condition, and even though attacked out of the blue, the Humans still acquitted themselves with distinction and honour.
39 Billion Humans would perish in the war. 39 Billion lives which need not have been lost. Something rarely brought up regarding the Covenant, is how it _could_ have simply introduced itself to the Humans of the UNSC, by sending a peaceful delegation to it. There need not have been violence. There may even have been a request for cooperation and integration within the Covenant. Yet peace was never an option, with the conniving of the Prophets of the San-Shy'uum involved from the highest levels. Their duplicity and selfishness, cost their own mixed species peoples a horrific number of lives as well. Yes, Humanity suffered worse losses overall, though this shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone considering the technological disparity. For the Humans, it was a baptism of fire.
The entire war need not have happened. Even had Humanity reacted poorly to the realisation of the Covenant on their periphery, and even had Humanity _rejected_ such a proposal (depending on how long the talks went on) and even had the Humans moved to protect themselves from the Covenant theoretically attacking them, there still need not have been violence. Yet because of what Humanity represented, they were seen as the anathema of the Prophets, the arch-enemy to be eliminated. When the Prophets even turned on the Elites, this betrayal of all the species of the Covenant, clicked for the Sangheli in the know. From that point on, the Covenant was living on borrowed time, grasping at straws.
In a way, the Human-Covenant War was a proving ground for the UNSC and Humanity itself. Horrific numbers of innocents and combatants alike died. Vast damage was so cruelly wrought upon Humanity across the stars. Yet all of it, in spite of it's needlessness, was still *not in vain* for Humanity grew bolder and stronger. If anything, Humanity was catapulted violently and brutally, kicking and screaming, into a new age - where adapted Covenant and Forerunner tech, helped them to accelerate their own technological development. It can only have made Humanity stronger. It was a triumph over immense adversity.
In the long view of Deep Time, Humanity did not deserve what happened to it during the Human-Covenant War in the slightest. They were merely defending themselves from outright Covenant invasion and the attempted genocide of the Human species/race. And in spite of all brutal losses, Huamnity came together and held the line. Sure, the Flood overrunning High Charity and the contemporaneous factional infighting within the Covenant going on as that was happening, weakened the strength and focus of the Covenant forces still engaged in warfare with the UNSC. Humanity fought bravely, though was hard-pressed to survive.
Nevertheless, we must still give credit where it is rightfully due, and acknowledge that Humanity had put up such a respectable fight, that in spite of slowly being in the process of likely ending up losing the war by sheer attrition, the suspect nature of the claims of the Prophets, about how 'evil' Humanity supposedly was, rang falser and falser as every battle was fought. Something wasn't right. The species of the Covenant slowly understood this.
Yet ironically, Humanity had cost the Covenant so dearly during the war so far, that this might not have changed the minds of a large proportion of the Covenant, because of the way Humanity had cost _them_ so much in what was supposed to be a walkover war against a bunch of technological primitives. Humanity worked wonders with what it had at it's disposal. No sacrifice was too great; no measure too severe.
This is why a lot of Sangheli changed their minds about the Humans.
Even though very large numbers of Sangheli fell in battle against the Spartans and Marines, they understood what Humanity was up against (better than Humanity did) And once the lies of the Prophets became obvious, the tenacity of Humanity could only have looked impressive whichever way it was looked at. Impressive, especially, because it was one species going up against multiple grouped together on an all out holy war against the Humans.
In the short term, the war was disastrous. In the long-term, Humanity could stand tall and dust itself off, knowing it had done what it could under immense pressure. It was never a fair fight - and no, war isn't often about fair fights. Still, the Humans had every right to be annoyed at the Covenant member species for what they had done. I repeat: ~39 Billion human beings were killed in the war. That includes a _lot_ of Spartans. Most of them died too. John-117 was the hero and salvation Humanity needed. A symbol of hope. They never really stood much of a chance against the Covenant. But try telling Master Chief that... [cue the fastest flying brick in the West going through deliberate planetary re-entry headfirst]
You mentioned that the war could've been avoided several times. But that's not true at all and you even describe why it not true in your explanation aswell.
The Prophets, the leading body of the Covenants recognized what humanity was from the first moment they saw them. There was not a world where the Covenant could exist alongside humanity, you even expertly explained why. So the only course of action to save the Covenant would be to kill humanity, hence a war was unavoidable.
The only mistake the prophets made in all of this was not explaining why humanity had to go to the elites, because they feared any explanation close to the truth could reveal the whole truth, which would reveal the lie of the Covenant. But in reality, just explaining that we perversed forerunner technology would've been more than enough for the elites to follow, not to mention partly true with humanity being forerunner compatible. At the end of the day, it was only a lack of trust from the prophets that caused the elites to switch side. Honour would demand loyalty, but loyalty has to be earned. Something the prophets lost after being caught in deliberate but unnecessary lies one too many times.
So no, the war wasn't at all avoidable in any way, shape or form. If you want the Earth-Covenant war done in the way you described it, then look at the original inspiration for the story. The Earth-Mimbari war. Entirely avoidable and tragic. The major difference is that they didn't have a spartan super soldier to carry them through the war.
@@starcraft2own The absolute state of this comment...
When you realise that the human covenant war basically started over 3 guys and a remnant of an AI
There's just one thing to remember: humanity never had the option to surrender. The Covenant neither offered nor accepted surrenders. They exterminated every human world that they found, seeing no distinction between military and civilian. In response, the UNSC matched their enemy's cruelty. At the end of war, the NOVA bombs were developed and deployed as weapons of mass destruction. The NOVA detonations were some of the rare occasions when the UNSC successfully counterattacked the Covenant empire directly, wiping out entire inhabited worlds much akin to Covenant glassing.
There is one more thing to remember. The Covenant had a technological advantage, it's true, but they did not have the numerical advantage. Throughout much of the war, the UNSC actually had more ships on hand, sustained by an enormous military-industrial complex that appeared comparable to that of the Covenant. The Human-Covenant War was akin to two superpowers going toe-to-toe, with the UNSC on the back foot from beginning to end. The war was unquestionably the largest and most devastating conflict that the Covenant had ever faced, as they (for the first time) fought an enemy that was as formidable as they were. The war lasted for 27 years partially because it took that long for the Covenant to build an armada (and then rebuild it after Admiral Cole blew the first one up).
@@Cailus3542 That was never in dispute. Of course humanity had to defend itself. They were given no choice. That is the point - shame on the Covenant.
Many people will never know how close Humanity was to actually being extinct
Always loved in Halo 3 where humanities "big"counter attack was 3 frigates and a bunch of fighters
If you think about it, in Halo 2, humanity LOST the war. The Covenant was ON Earth! We saw what happened to Reach, if the Covie’s weren’t so focused on the Forerunner artifact then Earth would have been glassed and heart of humanities government, administration, and military would have been annihilated. After 30 years of blood, sacrifice, and death… we lost. But we kept on fighting, because if we were going to go down... we're going down swinging.
The most intriguing part of this 20 year conflict is that it BUFFED TF out of humanity by the end of it.
Humans and Covenant were basically on equal terms by the time the Infinity and it's new classes of ships were constructed ... And then Cortana happened ...
Human-Covenant war, flood, Bungie days were the golden era of Halo, This story was so epic and well thought out in terms of lore. This new crap 343 keeps shoving down our throats just doesn't stack up. That's why Halo has gone from being *THE* AAA title to irrelevant in just a few years. (Not even going to talk about the TV show) As an OG Halo fan, it hurts to see the franchise in this state.
I mean I kind of like the whole aspect of Ancient humanity and all.
@@pakistanball2983It's better with the Forerunners as ancient humans.
The books Contact Harvest and Ghosts of Onyx trigger some serious feels.
Is it just me or does this kind of remind me of the Soviet, German front in WW2? One side overwhelming the other technologically and numeracly with the goal to exterminate them and the other initially fighting by pure weight of numbers before in the end, gaining the upper hand, numerically and technologically.
same, I couldn't be the only one who found that similarity!
This Sci Fi Storytelling, the fictional war of Humanity against an Alien enemy species should work as an inspiration and point of reference to predict future conflicts and possible scenarios for many generations to come, just like the real wars that this planet endured in the past centuries, humanity could learn a lot to prevent this terrible scenarios of blood shed, and not just for the human species. Hehe, i'm going to far from this point but come one, even the greeks had stories to tell, the romans did, and we have creativity to create this fictional stories/characters based on that Primal Behaviour you good gentlement point in this video: The primal need for conflict. Thank you so much for creating this content. Already subscribed.
One question I've always had, how the fuck did the UEG miss the portal device burried under New Mombassa? They have a mega-city with an space elevator right there. That thing should have been found long ago.
The Forerunners buried it with baffler tech, alongside various other security measures, to ensure it was not found until "the right time".
Presumably the near activation, and later destruction, of Instillation 04 sparked it to life.
Great video. I love every time this channel talks about Halo Lore. I also like to add that after the human covenant war the “Office of Naval Intelligence” (ONI) has sparked civil conflicts. Most specifically the sangheili/elites. Mainly because they’ve classified them as the main threat to human kind due to their expertise in combat. While the the prophets have just disappeared. after the reality of the covenant was exposed many of the species of the covenant have been hunting them down
If humanity would have had even basic energy shielding and more of its experimental weapons the war could have turned out much differently. Maybe humanity is still on a defensive fighting to delay but maybe more colonies could have survived. One thing I've wondered is what if the covenant didn't rely so heavily on glassing. Humanity was arguably on par if not more capable at ground combat than the covenant.
The difference wasn't just energy shielding, but also plasma tech and jumpspace tech.
It would be nice if Halo still felt like the thumbnail you used. Really that's a badass pic!
"Capitulation of the Earth government."
Capitulate to what? Peacefully being bombed into extinction?
Glory to those who marched into the howling dark and did not return.
Whole families, entire bloodlines.......just gone.
One could argue that no side has won. The Covernant was destroyed from the inside, leaving probably hundred of factions into a still ongoing civil war. While humanity survived it lost most of its planets, population and political organisation. Having a different political body before and after the war. But humanity as a whole has succeded in their primary goal of staying alive.
You covered the human-covenant war better than paramount "halo" show
“Only the dead have seen the end of war”-Plato
We look at Aliens like Aliens, but aliens look at us like aliens.. idk I was jus thinkin 😕
Not even sure how this started playing. I did play some pvp halo in college but that is the extent of my investment in the universe. Regardless, this sucked me in and I watched the entire presentation. Great job.
This feels like a stellaris Militarist UNE vs A Xenophile Spiritualist Empire
One thing I always wondered is why in the halo CE cutscene with the autum going to the ring being chased by covenant ships why does a blue and red plasma bolt fly past?
I understand the blue because in halo reach they almost looked blue but the red one always confused me
There isnt any red plasma bolts. Just the blue plasma torpedos.
You may be thinking of the flames coming from the Autumns hull as she decends
because it's meant to look like the opening shot of Star Wars.
I can't wait for TV adaptation!
Can you do reimaginings of the UNSC and Covenant?
I'm currently working on my headcanon. Not changing major lore details, I'm just simplifying some details, or making them more practical.
Why? Sure there are some irregularities but nothing that really needs a full reimagining.
@@robertwalker5794 Curiosity maybe?
@@robertwalker5794 Tell that to 343, who handwaved away much of the lore and replaced it with their Marvel-esque "nothing can go wrong for the heroes" narrative.
@@WimsicleStranger ah yes because the entire population of new Phoenix getting composed, black team getting brutally killed, and earth getting conquered at the end of 5 was totally stuff going well for the heros
It's like I just watched a documentary. Very nicely done man
This conflict was so bloody and desperate that it makes me sad that Bungie never took the opportunity to make the series more gory and heavy toned. Reach felt like the only game where you, as the player, TRULY felt the desperate state Humanity was in.
Also, not a huge fan of the direction 343 took the series to, as realistically it would take Humanity centuries to recover from such a conflict, yet in the games it takes a few short years
12:44 as with mist any wars, wars only brings more war…
I'm still amazed at all the carnage set upon both sides was all countless lies were twisted from a single truth.
Just imagine we are on the starting stages of this stuff with SpaceX and other companies working towards space innovation
Yep! Exciting times! :)
"Were it so easy."
-Thel 'Vadam
Imagine there being movies, like the Star Wars movies.
If done right, such movies would be at least as good (if not better, IMO) than the Star Wars movies.
Humanity lost more, but the Covenant broke first.
And then 343 hit the reset button and this grand, desperate tale basically doesn’t matter since the universe is basically in the same state as of Infinite
I mean, the same thing happened in the Star Wars universe (both pre- & post-Disney) and practically every other long-standing military franchise. ;P
God I wonder if the new halo series would show the beginnings of the UNSC and describe more of the insurrection and the first encounter of the covenant
Humanity won the war
We got to survive and thats a victory above all else
Never played the games but Halo lore is weirdly entertaining in a way other universes I have experience in don't.
Human-Covenant War.
*The Pacific War in Space*
This comment is mint!
One thing that bothered me was that in 30 years of war humanity did almost nothing to close the technology gap. From day one humanity should have been furiously reverse engineering covenant tech. Yet by the fall of reach they were only just figuring out a personal shield.
You could argue the Covenant was too advanced to figure out, but if so they’d have obliterated humanity with ease. At that start of the war UNSC rated they needed a 3:1 advantage in numbers to stand a chance in space combat. So the technology gap wasn’t that great.
If the war had lasted 3-5 years one could see the humans struggling to catch up but 30 years should have seen amazing leaps in human technology. At the very least they should have figured out ship shields.
Honestly ? the single largest tech advantage the covenant had was shields. Pull that from the covenant and I think most naval engagements would have required a 1.5 to 1 ratio. Macs slayed once they were pass the energy shields. Archer missiles did as well. Second, you have to make the tech, but also implement it. The warships on either side were between 600 meters long to over a klick on the common side. Some rarer examples were over 4 kilometers. And even then, it wasn't that the UNSC couldn't make plasma, or energy shields. Its the power requirements they had issues meeting.
I think another issue that may have come in was Cole protocol which forbade bringing covenant tech back to any of the colonies
Human - Convenant War was bloody and awful,,
but not as dark as Warhammer 40k
and I'm thankful for that.
The forerunner-flood-humanity war on the other hand... The battle of the Maginot Sphere outshines the battle of Terra. Not to mention literally cleansing the galaxy of all lifeforms.
@@evoluxman9935 wait, ain't Forerunner is Ancient Human??
@@ZAR556 No, ancient humans and Forerunners have even been at war.
TLDR, possible spoiler if you wanna discover the story in other ways
The precursors ruled the galaxy with basically transcendent tech, had a principle called the "mantle" to protect life and shit, and awarded it to ancient humanity. Forerunner got mad and started a war against the precursors. Despite being superior, the precursors basically disappeared and the forerunner ruled.
Fast forward and the ancient humans find some sort of old ships with weird powder that make their pets better. But the pets became the flood. The humans tried everything to get rid of it, and started invading/glassing some forerunners worlds, who saw that as an act of aggression. The humans managed to find a temporary cure for the flood, which retreated outside the galaxy, while the forerunners finished off the humans and reverted us back go prehistoric tech.
The flood came back though and the forerunners were overwhelmed. They designed an AI, mendicant bias, to combat the flood, but it defected after a conversation with the primordial, the last remaining precursor. The forerunners, losing battle after battle, created 12 halo rings, but most were destroyed. They then created 7 new, smaller ones (the 7th is actually a retrofitted one from the 12 OGs), and after a few desperate last stands, fired the halos and wiped all life in the galaxy.
Then automated "backups" reseeded life across the galaxy. Humanity, but also elites, prophets, etc... restarted from scratch. But the forerunners sacrificed themselves, save for a select few such as the didact, antagonist of Halo 4.
@@evoluxman9935 @Evoluxman thanks, for nice and short explanation, man.
I'm rather new in this,,
it fascinating me how Human got beat down almost extinct but still manage to bounce back.
@@ZAR556 no
Love the Cortina quote at the end
I wish there was a little more information out there about the conflict between the UNSC and the Separatists before the Human-Covenant war took over, ngl
I doubt that there is a lot to talk about there. The outer colonies just wanted to become independent from the distant core colonies and establish their own government and started a civil war when this was denied. There is not much else that happened.
Innies were a bunch of self destructive terrorists who killed anyone that didn't support their bullshit.
@@sosogo4real damn straight.
@@sosogo4real I'm sure there's more to the story than just UNSC propaganda lmao
@@ooonyxxx shut it Innie! Lmao