Feasability of the Pillar of Autumn

[Master_Baerne]

Right, then. I was playing Halo the other day, and during the last level, something occurred to me, namely that the Pillar of Autumn has a huge, three-kilometer-ish hole in it. You know, that huge tunnel you drive your Warthog through. What is the purpose of this? Does it make any sense for there to be such a area, since it seems to only go between the Engine Room, a Warthog garage, and a Longsword docking bay?

As an aside, is the Pillar of Autumn a troop carrier or a battleship? It seems to carry vast amounts of soldiers, but precious little weaponry. Nevertheless, it manages to take out several Covenant Cruisers before being destroyed. What gives here?

[Levy Leah]

As discussed here by Stephen Loftus, there's really no way to reconcile the PoA's private racetrack near the end of Halo. Most scaling places the PoA at 1.17km long; obviously far short of the ~ 3km track. As for it's purpose? According to the game's transcripts, it is a "class 7 service corridor". Take that for what you will.

As an aside, is the Pillar of Autumn a troop carrier or a battleship? It seems to carry vast amounts of soldiers, but precious little weaponry. Nevertheless, it manages to take out several Covenant Cruisers before being destroyed. What gives here?

I believe that the PoA was simply called a Cruiser throughout the game and novel, though I may be mistaken. She seemed to have some troop ferrying capabilities (at least she should have, if the UNSC was planning on using her to attack a Covvie homeworld). As for weapons, she was armed with a few hundred Archer missle pods, a modified MAC cannon (essentially a large coilgun) designed to fire three extremely massive Tungsten slugs in quick succession (though I am unsure of how fast ship based MAC rounds travel), and most likely several Shiva nuclear warheads (at least according to this page).

[Black Admiral]

As an aside, is the Pillar of Autumn a troop carrier or a battleship? It seems to carry vast amounts of soldiers, but precious little weaponry. Nevertheless, it manages to take out several Covenant Cruisers before being destroyed. What gives here?

The Pillar of Autumn is a Halcyon-class cruiser, in-universe an old and outdated type, if very difficult to actually destroy due to the way they're built. It was, before ending up diverted, supposed to be on a mission to capture a Prophet, which would explain the battalion of Helljumpers aboard.

As for why the Autumn was able to engage those Covenant cruisers over Halo, the Covenant forces were fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. The Prophet in overall charge of the expedition ordered the Autumn boarded and taken, apparently concerned about the damage a misaimed plasma torpedo would do to Halo itself.

[Peptuck]

Right, then. I was playing Halo the other day, and during the last level, something occurred to me, namely that the Pillar of Autumn has a huge, three-kilometer-ish hole in it. You know, that huge tunnel you drive your Warthog through. What is the purpose of this? Does it make any sense for there to be such a area, since it seems to only go between the Engine Room, a Warthog garage, and a Longsword docking bay?

Ostensibly, its supposed to be a service corridor, but Bungie themselves said that the Maw Run tunnel completely contradicts the size and proportions of the Autumn in all other literature, and that they made it that long so you would have fun on the Warthog run. When driving down it, just turn off your brain.

As an aside, is the Pillar of Autumn a troop carrier or a battleship? It seems to carry vast amounts of soldiers, but precious little weaponry. Nevertheless, it manages to take out several Covenant Cruisers before being destroyed. What gives here?

All UNSC ships pparently devote a significant portion of their space to Marine detachments; look at all the UNSC hardware laying around Delta Halo in Halo 2, and that came from a frigate (unless you're one of those conspiracy theorists who thinks that ONI was up to something there). The Pillar was originally an outdated Halcyon cruiser whose design and structure made its class practically indestructable in combat (compared with other UNSC ships, which pop like firecrackers under Coovenant fire), and it was refitted with a huge arsenal of weapons for a special mission involving taking out a Covenant vessel, capturing it, and using it to capure a Prophet.

By the time of Halo, most of the Autumn's weaponry had been disabled and she'd suffered substantial troop and crew casualties after the battle over Reach, but it had Keyes and Cortana in command and the Covenant were not trying to destroy the ship due to the orders of a Prophet who did not want the Halo damaged.

[Master_Baerne]

Clearly they're using subspace mass-lightening technology to increase the quantum relative field effect and allow trans-dimensional service corridors that travel through fluidic space.

Oh wait, this is Halo...

It seems odd that Bungie, with it's rock-solid adherence to physics in everything else, would do such a thing. I can't think of another explanation, but surely there is one? Even a crack-influenced conspiracy theory?

[Lazarus]

The service corridor isn't a 'hole', it runs along the spine of the ship and is mostly just an enclosed trench. It's not unreasonable that such a construction might be built into the ship, so the only problem is it's in-game length, and the presence of a Longsword bay which doesn't seem to appear on the outer hull.

The POA itself was armed with Archer missile pods (not hundreds of pods, as someone else stated, more like the low dozens), a CIWS system composed of numerous gatling cannons, several Shiva nuclear missiles and a modifed MAC gun that fired with a triple-burst setting in order to defeat Covenant shield technology.

[Nephtys]

That entire section makes no sense, except as a hilarious indoor stunt course. What's with the dozens of ramps? The tunnels and loop-de-loops? I /figured/ it was supposed to be their hangar bay, but that makes no sense at all. It's got no fighters except that one at the end, no support machinery or random gear lying around. All you needed was a giant flaming ring to jump through and it'd look like a UT2004 Level.

[VF5SS]

Anyone who has ever played Marathon already knows of Bungie's penchant for weird ship design. Lest we forget that space station with open lava pits and switches that could only be activated with a grenade launcher. Also alien ships with open platforms fifty feet high surrounded by pits of acid. Talk about your occupational hazards.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I guess it meant anyone wanting to hijack the ship had to have balls of steel and not just an Apple and some 1337 hacking software.

[Levy Leah]

The POA itself was armed with Archer missile pods (not hundreds of pods, as someone else stated, more like the low dozens)

Actually, page 271 of The Fall of Reach states "Honeycombed around this section were the round covers of of Archer missle pods. Captain Keys counted: thirty pods across, ten down. Each pod held dozens of missles. The Pillar of Autum had a secret arsenal to rival any real cruiser in the fleet."

[Sarevok]

The PoA never struck me as a troopship. I encountered less than 80 total marines in the game, a pair of dropships and a dozen or so vehicles. It seemed like an ISDlite, a warship with limited ground attack capabilities. Has the books increased number of marines greatly ? And what of the ODST some mentioned arent they in Halo 2 only ?

[Lazarus]

.

The POA itself was armed with Archer missile pods (not hundreds of pods, as someone else stated, more like the low dozens)

Actually, page 271 of The Fall of Reach states "Honeycombed around this section were the round covers of of Archer missle pods. Captain Keys counted: thirty pods across, ten down. Each pod held dozens of missles. The Pillar of Autum had a secret arsenal to rival any real cruiser in the fleet."

Fair enough, maybe I was thinking of the Iroquois.

[Master_Baerne]

The PoA never struck me as a troopship. I encountered less than 80 total marines in the game, a pair of dropships and a dozen or so vehicles. It seemed like an ISDlite, a warship with limited ground attack capabilities. Has the books increased number of marines greatly ? And what of the ODST some mentioned arent they in Halo 2 only ?

In The Flood, there's an ODST battalion on the Pillar of Autumn.

[YT300000]

Anyone who has ever played Marathon already knows of Bungie's penchant for weird ship design. Lest we forget that space station with open lava pits and switches that could only be activated with a grenade launcher. Also alien ships with open platforms fifty feet high surrounded by pits of acid. Talk about your occupational hazards.

Agreed. Halo is extremely generous in not forcing the player to quickly get of lifts before they crush him into the ceiling.

[Peptuck]

The PoA never struck me as a troopship. I encountered less than 80 total marines in the game, a pair of dropships and a dozen or so vehicles. It seemed like an ISDlite, a warship with limited ground attack capabilities. Has the books increased number of marines greatly ? And what of the ODST some mentioned arent they in Halo 2 only ?

The copius amounts of human Flood wearing Marine fatigues says otherwise.

[CycloneRider052]

The PoA never struck me as a troopship. I encountered less than 80 total marines in the game, a pair of dropships and a dozen or so vehicles. It seemed like an ISDlite, a warship with limited ground attack capabilities. Has the books increased number of marines greatly ? And what of the ODST some mentioned arent they in Halo 2 only ?

The copius amounts of human Flood wearing Marine fatigues says otherwise.

What we see in the game is but a fraction of the action on Halo, the novel goes into a lot more detail, indicating that there's a full on human resistance with something like a battalion of troops on the ground.

[Master_Baerne]

The PoA never struck me as a troopship. I encountered less than 80 total marines in the game, a pair of dropships and a dozen or so vehicles. It seemed like an ISDlite, a warship with limited ground attack capabilities. Has the books increased number of marines greatly ? And what of the ODST some mentioned arent they in Halo 2 only ?

The copius amounts of human Flood wearing Marine fatigues says otherwise.

What we see in the game is but a fraction of the action on Halo, the novel goes into a lot more detail, indicating that there's a full on human resistance with something like a battalion of troops on the ground.

There's a battalion of ODSTs on the ground, not counting the regular Marines.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Surely the most sensible option is to simply disregard the geometry of the final run and rationalise it as entirely a game mechanic.

Given the ships size however its probably not overly unreasonable to assume that the Autumn has at least one service corridor wide enough to fit Warthogs, but its ridiculous to seriously consider that it was made up of crazy loops and whatnot.

[defanatic]

Surely the most sensible option is to simply disregard the geometry of the final run and rationalise it as entirely a game mechanic.

Given the ships size however its probably not overly unreasonable to assume that the Autumn has at least one service corridor wide enough to fit Warthogs, but its ridiculous to seriously consider that it was made up of crazy loops and whatnot.

The gripe with the final run isn't just the loops and jumps, but also its length. It is almost 3 times longer than the pillar of autumn is.

[JointStrikeFighter]

The gripe with the final run isn't just the loops and jumps, but also its length. It is almost 3 times longer than the pillar of autumn is.

When I said geometry I meant level geometry which would include the length. Sorry, I should have been more clear.

[DoomTrain]

It's simple. A 1.17 km flat trench run would not an interesting last level make.

[Molyneux]

...with all those curves, you don't ever make a U-turn, do you?

[Vehrec]

NOPE The rest of the level geometry doesn't even fit inside the hull of the ship. Large portions are stuck outside, and the class seven corridor is pointed back towards the bridge. It's a mess, and best retconed as 'Bungie really wanted some crazy Maw driving on their ship.'

[Sarevok]

Yeah even though it was different from typical endgame boss fights the final segment of Halo makes no sense. The problem could be solved by simply shooting past enemies as the counter ticks away instead of contrived escape via warthog race course.

[Master_Baerne]

Yeah even though it was different from typical endgame boss fights the final segment of Halo makes no sense. The problem could be solved by simply shooting past enemies as the counter ticks away instead of contrived escape via warthog race course.

The problem should be solved by means of high explosives or armor-piercing bullets, like all the other problems in Halo. And, by-the-by, you race past enemies as the counter ticks away on a Warthog race course. It's a "both" thing, not an either/or.