Halo anime series

[Samuel]

would a nuke like that emit an active power source if it wasn't armed?

Er, no- it wasn't a nuke- it killed all life on the neighboring planet.

vaporizing a quarter of the world, shattering the planet's moon, destroying much of the Covenant Separatists fleet gathered there, and causing massive shock waves that leveled many cities on other parts of the planet. In addition, the explosion resulted in 300 mph winds that wrecked many of the remaining cities, and created massive tidal waves that destroyed much of the coastline[1]. Needless to say, few of the planet's inhabitants survived the blast itself or the very severe conditions caused by the after-effects of the weapon (climate change, fallout etc.)

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Joyous_Exultation

For all the engineer knew, it might have been a really big self-contained reactor.

Without any of the normal safeties? Although looking at the NOVA bomb description is so retarded that I can accept them not realizing it was a danger. The stupid... burns

They don't think Humans are demons, they think humans are animals.

They do refer to humans several times as demons, but it could just mean the Spartans and anyone associated with them. Regardless, animals who employ demons are not to be trusted.

And animals aren't smart enough to lay traps.

I was going to post an image of a trap door spider and ask if the Covenant is too stupid to realize that insects can lay traps, but the photos are too creepy.

Surely the desire to recapture the crystal and having the honor of recovering it for asskissing/advancement purposes figured highly into the commanders' minds.

Military discipline does not factor into this at all? Even in their fleer which has shown itself previous to be rather disciplined (for example shutting down shields when being boarded)?

Not to mention that Whitcomb was taunting them to come and get it.

Never do what your enemy expects if you can avoid it. But apparently basic military strategy is foreign to them. Did they honestly expect the humans to taunt them if they actually had it? Not only are they unable to figure out how aliens think, they are unable to figure out how they would act if they were in such a situation. And this is the entire fleer, not just one dumb commander!

[Samuel]

What is the suspension of disbelief policy towards things that are obviously stupid? The NOVA bomb is supposed to be 9 fusion bombs that have their power amplified by lithium triteride. Or, in other words, they make extra energy by magic.

Also, the exact wording is here

https://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic ... 55&start=0

[Darksider]

What the fuck is "lithium Triteride?"

[Samuel]

What the fuck is "lithium Triteride?"

The first hit is the halo wiki so I'm betting the substance is made up.

Lithium is element number 3 and while I need more chemistry knowledge, Triteride is almost certainly ripped off from lithium deuteride.

[Darksider]

They should have just said "magic energy amplifying substance." It would've made about as much sense, and wouldn't make it sound like my cell phone battery could be used to power a planet killing superweapon.

[SylasGaunt]

They should have just said "magic energy amplifying substance." It would've made about as much sense, and wouldn't make it sound like my cell phone battery could be used to power a planet killing superweapon.

Although that is an awesome thought.

Also I may be remembering wrong but aren't the engineer's kind of OCD about fixing anything that's broken?

[JointStrikeFighter]

Clearly the NOVA warhead was naqudah enhanced CROSSOVER AHOY

[Vendetta]

What the fuck is "lithium Triteride?"

Naquadah?

[Samuel]

Actually they are rather different. While green rocks, naquadah could be creating energy by converting from matter to energy. In the case of the NOVA bomb...

When detonated, it compresses its fissionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold.

[Hawkwings]

They forgot the part of the explanation that says "...which opens a slipspace rupture, allowing the energy from higher dimensions to pour through, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold"

[The Vortex Empire]

That would make far more sense. What kind of stupid empire would allow a species like the engineers to do that kind of stuff unsupervised? Oh, that's right, we're talking about the "let's allow our warships to be taken over by a single squad of men, then make no effort to prevent it from happening again" Covenant.

Origins is the only one that looks at all interesting. All the others are standard Halo fanwank material.

[[R_H]]

The grunts, on the other end of the spectrum aren't really slaves. They're laborers, they're under-class, they're bullied and picked on by everyone else, forced to live in an atmosphere that's lacking in the gas they need to live, but they also have contributed members to both the clergy as lay-priests and to the military, even going as far as Spec-ops teams. Their main oppressors are the Jackals-who apparently were one of the major reasons the Grunts rose up against the whole covenant. A rebellion that apparently was responsible for equalizing conditions between Grunts and Jackals as well as integrating them into the military.

The Jackals felt that the Ministry of Tranquillity wasn't doing its job, and that the Grunts were outbreeding them. So they covertly sterilised a bunch of Grunts, the Grunts later found out and revolted because of that. The Elites were impressed with the Grunts fighting ability and accepted them into the military.

As for the Hunters... well they're just strange. Poems one minute, brutal violence the next, with very little inbetween. I'd say their one of the most alien of the Halo alien species, but we never really get a feel for how alien they are, other than their strange biology whereby each one is composed of hundreds of meter-long worms that somehow can think.

The Engineers are pretty damn alien too, to the point of being implausible.

[Hawkwings]

Well, considering that Engineers are forerunner bio-constructs that were built to maintain forerunner technology, and all high tech in the Haloverse is apparently very similar if not identical to forerunner technology... it makes a bit more sense.

[[R_H]]

Well, considering that Engineers are forerunner bio-constructs that were built to maintain forerunner technology, and all high tech in the Haloverse is apparently very similar if not identical to forerunner technology... it makes a bit more sense.

Wait...when did that happen (which book)?

[Duckie]

Here's some things that confuse me:

1. Halo backstory says the Covenant doesn't invent but rather adapts forerunner technology
2. The Covenant are capable of making computers and AI beings
3. The Covenant have a poor understanding of how Maxwell's Equations work according to 'Halo: First Strike' and thus their reactors on their ships don't funnel energy to the guns efficiently and with computer-side modification you can thus make a single turret of theirs hundreds of times more powerful shooting giant death beams. Covenant AI who observed this software modification noted that altering the ship's specifications was 'heresy'.
4. Covenant ships are purple.
5. Everything the forerunner built is silver, because the developers apparantly didn't think highly enough of people to let them catch 'lol humans are forerunner' without the two architectures looking similar.

Question 1: How do the covenant work on computers without understanding maxwell's equations? How do they maintain their technology? I'm told you need to know that just to manufacture transistors, let alone space-age nanowhatsits.
Question 2: If the Covenant do understand Maxwell's Equations despite the books claiming they don't, how did they find them without science or innovation? Was there a Forerunner tablet which had it written down in equation form, and they just plug in numbers?
Question 3: If you can make a single gun on a single ship capable of fighting multiple full-strength warships with simple software modification, how come the Covenant haven't? Is it Heretical? If so, how do they repair broken devices? If it's the Engineers, how do engineers know when to stop improving a device? For instance, why haven't they fixed covenant computers or reactors or whatnot to shoot giant deathbeams out of their turrets? Did the Forerunner purposefully make the Engineers or the Ships to be underpowered?
Question 4: Why are Covenant ships and technology, which are supposedly salvaged from the forerunner, universally purple or cool coloured and curvy, while Forerunner architecture is notably silver/gold and jagged and humanlike? Why is all ostensibly covenant equipment purple and curvy, with no evidence of silver jagged salvaged objects except perhaps energy swords? Do they manufacture the ships and vehicles and guns themselves and thus change the aesthetic to their liking during that process? If not, how do they solve wear-and-tear on the ships? Where do they get new components? How can they manufacture forerunner components without forerunner machine tools or the like, and especially without knowing how it works? Even automated forerunner factories would break down and in turn need new components, meaning that no chain of automated black box factories would last forever.
Question 5: If the Covenant really did salvage all its equipment, why is it so standardised? Did the Forerunner have STC Templates or something?
Question 6: If the Covenant don't salvage their equipment but instead manufacture it, why is altering it from the default settings heretical? Further, why don't they ever improve their devices? How can you manufacture a spaceship or a plasma rifle without understanding electromagnetism?

"Neo-Luddite" in the space age hurts my head. They should have just made the Covenant a conservative (loathe to alter designs except when necessary) and religiously fanatical alliance of races rather than that.

[also why is there only one faction for any given race? Sure we had heretical elites and anti-UN rebels for elites and humans, but why is there no political or religious or ethnic depth to any of the races despite the ostensible focus on politics when showing the covenant from the covenant POV? Even the mediæval catholic church was no monolithic entity and had doctrinal differences and factions.]

Scratch that, all of the Covenant hurts my head. It seems like the more the potentially-not-shitty universe was fleshed out by games and authors the stupider it became. EU comparisions definitely.

[loomer]

I'm pretty sure the Covenant just scavenge the designs, Duckie, and do in fact build their own ships and weapons.

[[R_H]]

Here's some things that confuse me:

1. Halo backstory says the Covenant doesn't invent but rather adapts forerunner technology

In Contact Harvest there's an example of the Covenant, the Engineer (Lighter than Some) actually, being inventive. It built the Chopper prototypes out of a damaged Spirit dropship.

Even the mediæval catholic church was no monolithic entity and had doctrinal differences and factions.

There are ascetic San'Shyuum, but the difference between them and the others are never explained in the back story.