Defiant to the End

Defiant to the End is a short Halo universe documentary uploaded to Halo Waypoint in 2011. The short is predominantly focused on the release of the Defiant Map Pack for Halo: Reach, and a look at the in-universe settings for the maps in the pack - based on the novels Halo: The Fall of Reach and Halo: First Strike. To help cement the maps' settings within the context of the novels, the video predominantly uses footage of Halo: Reach multiplayer, with green Mark V-clad Spartans running around the maps to represent Blue Team and Red Team.

Text transcript

The following is a transcript of the original blog posted to Halo Waypoint to serve as context for the video.

“

The story behind the Defiant maps: Condemned, Unearthed, and Highlands

”

Each of the Defiant maps is based on a location in the Halo universe, on and around the planet Reach.

Condemned takes place aboard Orbital Station Gamma, a massive space station high in orbit above the planet Reach. Prior to the Covenant's overwhelming invasion, Orbital Station Gamma provided long range communications for UNSC fleets and a vital lifeline between Reach and Earth. During the Battle of Reach, the station suffered terrible punishment at the hands of the Covenant but a few fortified sections remain intact, fully pressurized, and ready for combat.

Highlands takes place on the top-secret Military Wilderness Training Preserve on Reach. The Preserve is a large, wooded area where Spartan super-soldiers trained long before the war with the Covenant began. During the Battle of Reach, the Preserve was the site of key battles between the alien invaders and a group of Spartans who used their familiarity with these UNSC training grounds to significant tactical advantage…but not everyone who enters these woods makes it out alive. Highlands expands the fight with massive-scale engagements for 8 – 16 players in Big Team Battle, Team Slayer and Team Objective.

Unearthed takes the battle for Reach to a large Titanium mine and refinery located in the Viery civilian sector of the planet. This particular mine was built to take advantage of the exposed titanium inside a massive meteor crater. The titanium produced here is used in much of the UNSC hardware, from the chassis of the Warthog to the meters-thick armor plating of capital ships like the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. While this facility was quickly abandoned when the Covenant arrived on Reach, it still has significant tactical (and economic) value and it won’t be long before both humans and Covenant return to battle for control.

Video transcript

As the finality of August 30th, 2552, became clear to the UNSC, the Covenant continued to bombard Reach - obliterating whatever was left of the planet's population without hesitation or mercy. This ritualistic and genocidal effort, however, would not go unchallenged. At key sites on and around Reach, a brave few would stand against the Covenant's barbarity; fortifying their defences and calling upon whatever reserves of courage they had left.

[Stock footage shows of the map Condemned]

High above the planet's surface, the orbital known as Reach Gamma Station bore witness to one of these battles. During the Covenant's final push for military supremacy, the enemy ruthlessly targeted this station. The aliens were intent on finding humanity's homeworld and to this end, had discovered that an ONI prowler, the UNSC Circumference, had failed to delete its navigation database - placing the information it carried at risk of capture. The Master Chief, John-117, lead Spartans Linda-058 and James-005 onto the station to safely secure the NAV data and temporarily stave off the Covenant's relentless forces. Though they were successful, both James and Linda were casualties in this mission and Gamma Station would eventually be torn apart by the Covenant, with only debris left in their brutal wake.

[Stock footage shows of the map Highlands]

Intent on defending Reach's orbital defense generators, twenty-two other Spartans would fearlessly leap out of a doomed Pelican, hard dropping into the alpine mountains of the Viery Territory at the heart of the Military Wilderness Training Preserve. The Spartans to the fight to the Covenant, making their way to the generators which powered the planet's orbital MAC guns in an effort to support the UNSC fleets overhead. The outlying forests and a nearby training complex would become the battleground for this fight, the Spartans using their familiarity with the territory to deal with the Covenant's encoruaching threat. The handful of soldiers to survive this encounter found their way to the base of Menachite Mountain, home to the top-secret CASTLE facility and a decades-old titanium mine, just as the Covenant focused their forces in this specific area.

[Stock footage shows of the map Unearthed]

Elsewhere in the area was another titanium mine, and yet another site in the struggle for the planet's survival. Mining the titanium reserves since the early years of Reach's colonisation, BXR industries had set up facilities throughout the enormous ridges and canyons which lined the planet's supercontinent. Although the aliens' interest in this site may never be fully known, the UNSC would defend it to the end, putting some of their best soldiers on the front lines only to find defeat eventually. The Covenant would overrun the mining facility, wiping out what was left of the human resistance both here and elsewhere across Reach.

And as the planet was burnt to cinder and ash, the UNSC's remaining forces would amass near Earth, fortifying the last stronghold that humanity had in its posession. But this battle would be a reminder of the courage, bravery, and defiance of the men and women of the UNSC who fought and died not only on the planet Reach but for the hope of their species' survival - and this same hope would serve as a bastion of inspiration for those who would fight on Earth, defying the Covenant one last time and bringing an end to the war.

See also

• Archive:Halo Waypoint/2009 to 2014/Universe/Events

External links

• Halo Waypoint - Defiant to the End
• YouTube - Defiant to the End