User talk:CookieMonstersayshello

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Could you please link this to the your user talk archive. It's kinda the rules...1234fansofHalo 22:55, 11 July 2011 (EDT)

Do I bloody have to? --CookieMonstersayshello 16:19, 13 July 2011 (EDT)

Covenant and UNSC strategies

Since I have a feeling you aren't willing to let this go, I thought I needed to settle this.

"as it ALWAYS bias if its stated the covenant are better strategists than the humans but NOT the other way round is that it?"

— You

You'd be wrong. It's definitely bias both ways around. However, there is something to be said about the viewpoint presented in the novels, which often depict humans as superior tacticians while Covenant tactics are repeatedly shown to be driven by doctrine or religious reasons (to name one instance, John's observation on page 111 of The Fall of Reach). Most importantly, their strategies or tactics aren't a defining factor in most Covenant victories; even if some of their victories are due to better strategic thinking, the Covenant don't need to be good strategists in order to win because their weapons and technology are so vastly superior. On the other hand, humans have to rely on cleverness or in most cases, numerical superiority. It's like pitting modern fighter jets against WW2-era planes; even if they used superior tactics, it's not like the fighter jets need any strategy other than "lock on and pull the trigger".

Still, you can't generalize it by saying the Covenant are better strategists than humans or the other way around. It's always a matter of individual commanders. People like Jacob Keyes or Preston Cole or others who continuously prevailed against Covenant obviously used better tactics than the Covenant commanders they faced. In the Covenant, there are practical commanders like Voro Nar 'Mantakree who are undoubtedly good tacticians, but likely more of those who let doctrine, personal beliefs, their honor codes, or blind zealotry cloud their judgment, like Tano 'Inanraree, Luro 'Taralumee or Ripa 'Moramee. There's also the issue that because the two civilizations and the technologies they use are so vastly different, they are ineligible for direct comparison. UNSC strategies or tactics aren't necessarily better than Covenant ones, they're just different. That difference alone may be what tips many battles in one faction's favor.

Coming back to the point about the perspective of the novels, I don't think a single novel, game or reference work has objectively acknowledged the tactical or strategic superiority of the Covenant that you keep on proclaiming. Unless you have a source where an omniscient narrator or a reliable character states that Covenant strategies are superior, you can't claim the Covenant are always better than humans just because you like them better. --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 08:09, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

Its not that I "like" the covenant better, but I do think considering the covenant are disadvantaged by religion they do fairly well against the Humans both tactically, technologically and strategically. And another issue ive come across:

The Elites, why the hell on the sangheili page does it ramble and ramble on about how awesome and excellent tacticians they are against Brutes but makes them look like idiots when they come the sangheili tactics to human tactics. Why? Why the hierarchy with Humans at the top, Elites second and Brutes even more inferior? Why the annoying mixed messages, either the Elites and Covenant ARE good tacticians or they ARENT. It has to be one or the other, and your implying the humans tactics are better than those of Rtas Vadum, Thel Vadam, Voro Nar 'Mantakree are you? Huh. Seriously, these mixed halopedian messages NEED to STOP right freaking now (yes i'm getting heat up because of the mixed messages that arent consistent).

Any examples of Covenant tactical brilliance against humans okay: Battle of Sigma Octanus: Although the Covenant lost overall when the Spartans werent helping the marines it says how "0600 Hours: Covenant forces ambush and obliterate all marine forces on the ground. Only 14 enlisted men survive. Corporal Harland assumes tactical command. They must have used tactics to do that, as ambushing IS a valid millitary tactic. Not to mention at the end of the battle the covenant managed to place a spy probe on the Iroqiuous (or however you spell it) so the Covenant could locate Reach and destroy the colony. The covenant cant be that daft if you think about it.

Battle of Alpha Base Another example of Covenant tactics: the Sangheili TRICKED the UNSC Marines and ODSTs into thinking they were a UNSC Pelican making there way in, the truth was they were an armed force sent in to assasinate the absent Spartan-117.

Battle of the Silent Cartographer Again the Covenant did a counter-attack that wiped out the Marine force practically behind 117's back. Use of tactics again.

And you also cant say that just because the UNSC may often inflict greater casualties on the Covenant makes them better tacticans (Fall of Reach), as there have many a few battles (mostly in space) where Admiral Cole's fleet suffers more losses than the Covie fleet yet he's thought of as a GENIUS for his victories no matter how pyrrhic they are.

I could just go on forever, any counter-arguments thats fine by me. But I still think these issues need to analysed more, rather than just popular Halo opinion screening what the facts are. --CookieMonstersayshello 08:45, 27 July 2011 (EDT)

"Its not that I "like" the covenant better, but I do think considering the covenant are disadvantaged by religion they do fairly well against the Humans both tactically, technologically and strategically."

— Me

I think there's a contradiction here; you're saying the Covenant are "disadvantaged by religion", by which I assume you mean the fact they tend to be dogmatic and thus their tactical and strategic flexibility is very limited. If anything, that means most of their victories are accomplished by their superior technology as opposed to their tactics, which as you mentioned, are constrained by dogma.

"It has to be one or the other, and your implying the humans tactics are better than those of Rtas Vadum, Thel Vadam, Voro Nar 'Mantakree are you? Huh."

— You

Because it already contains a sufficient response, I repeat here a paragraph from my initial post:

...you can't generalize it by saying the Covenant are better strategists than humans or the other way around. It's always a matter of individual commanders. People like Jacob Keyes or Preston Cole or others who continuously prevailed against Covenant obviously used better tactics than the Covenant commanders they faced. In the Covenant, there are practical commanders like Voro Nar 'Mantakree who are undoubtedly good tacticians, but likely more of those who let doctrine, personal beliefs, their honor codes, or blind zealotry cloud their judgment, like Tano 'Inanraree, Luro 'Taralumee or Ripa 'Moramee. There's also the issue that because the two civilizations and the technologies they use are so vastly different, they are ineligible for direct comparison. UNSC strategies or tactics aren't necessarily better than Covenant ones, they're just different. That difference alone may be what tips many battles in one faction's favor.

That should be an adequate answer. There are undoubtedly instances where Covenant have won thanks mainly to their tactics, but it all comes down to the fact you can't claim Covenant strategies, all in all, to be better than human ones as an objective truth. In the case of the Human-Covenant War article, the Covenant's technology, numbers and resources are quantifiable and can be easily proven, while strategy or "religious willpower" as you added recently, are not. Again, if there was a novel where the narrator or a reliable character acknowledged that Covenant strategies were superior, then it would be a different matter entirely. But you can't make a general statement that most of the Covenant's victories were due to superior strategies based on a handful of examples alone, just like one can't claim all human commanders are better strategists than Covenant ones. Overall, our articles shouldn't be about debating which faction had superior tactics. They should be about describing the events from a neutral standpoint.

"And you also cant say that just because the UNSC may often inflict greater casualties on the Covenant makes them better tacticans (Fall of Reach), as there have many a few battles (mostly in space) where Admiral Cole's fleet suffers more losses than the Covie fleet yet he's thought of as a GENIUS for his victories no matter how pyrrhic they are."

— You

No, I did not say "the UNSC" are better tacticians. I said there are individual commanders who are better tacticians. There are also human commanders who are worse tacticians than their Covenant counterparts, but we're not hearing that much about them because they're dead. Cole is regarded a genius because any of his ships survive at all - with any lesser commander, all of them would've been wiped out, and not just because Covenant tactics are superior; Again, it's like pitting WWII fighters against modern ones (you could really make this comparison with anything, like medieval knights vs. cavemen, an armored division vs. cavalry, etc).

Just to prove a point that you can't say Covenant tactics are all in all better based on a few examples, here's some analysis of Covenant tactical or strategic brilliance:

• Battle of Chi Ceti: Though it could've easily dodged them, the Unrelenting purposefully takes hits from the Commonwealth, because it's willing to take whatever the humans throw at it.

• Battle of Shield 0459: A group of Sangheili decide that the best way to deal with a team of armed Spartans is to charge them head-on with blade weapons. Meanwhile, the commander of the said Elites is killed because he lets his guard down as a result of a human taunting him.

• Battle of Psi Serpentis: The Covenant think it's a good idea to take their entire fleet of hundreds of ships closer to an unstable gas giant when chasing down a single ship. All are annihilated as a result.

• Operation: UPPER CUT: The Long Night of Solace doesn't blast the Savannah into oblivion with a plasma torpedo before it gets into visible range from Ardent Prayer, even though plasma torpedoes on ordinary Covenant ships are known to be capable of pinpoint precision at distances of millions of kilometers. Furthermore, they have no qualms about letting the corvette dock after it's been boarded by human forces and communications have been lost.

• Operation: FIRST STRIKE: The Covenant send their entire fleet toward a station whose reactor is going critical in order to retrieve an artifact from a disabled ship occupied by a formidable force of two humans. Most of the Covenant ships are annihilated.

• Post-Fall of Reach: The Covenant, Sangheili specifically, decide to take what they must realize is a massive nuclear device (from its radiological signature), close to one of their colonies, on one of their most important ships. They then let a clueless, lowly Unggoy near the said nuclear device. As a result, the ship, the fleet, the colony and multiple high-ranking Sangheili are obliterated.

I could go on, but at the end of the day, there's no need. If we were talking about two factions with identical resources, technology and numbers, then it might be easier to determine when tactics were a contributing factor to a victory, but here, there are too many other factors at play. Nevertheless, in light of the UNSC's technological inferiority, it's not entirely unfounded to assume they held out as long as they did or gained their few victories because of overall superior strategy and tactical thinking.

One more thing. You keep adding "cleverer technology" to the Human-Covenant War page. I'm not sure if you're referring to the intellectual capacity of Covenant technology, or implying the Covenant are inventive and clever with their technology. This couldn't be further from the truth - more than once, it's been stated that the Covenant are imitative rather than innovative, and that they got the majority of their technology from the Forerunners. By that definition of "clever", I can only assume human technology would be "genius". --Jugus (Talk | Contribs) 10:45, 27 July 2011 (EDT)