[General Battuta]

Let me get this straight, there's a bunch of Spartan-III's on Reach, for no good reason, considering their purpose as soldiers who could complete suicide missions by dint of sheer numbers, and there's one single S-II in Noble Team, which makes no sense considering he should be with the rest of the S-II's that are supposed to be protecting the surface power installations so the SMAC's can keep firing.

Actually...there's an intel entry on Bungie.net which does a fair job of explaining why the S-IIIs are on Reach. That element of the backstory I don't find fault with.

But the SMACs are never mentioned, nor the generators, nor the Spartan-II Red Team.

[SpardaSon21]

Let me get this straight, there's a bunch of Spartan-III's on Reach, for no good reason, considering their purpose as soldiers who could complete suicide missions by dint of sheer numbers, and there's one single S-II in Noble Team, which makes no sense considering he should be with the rest of the S-II's that are supposed to be protecting the surface power installations so the SMAC's can keep firing.

Actually...there's an intel entry on Bungie.net which does a fair job of explaining why the S-IIIs are on Reach. That element of the backstory I don't find fault with.

But the SMACs are never mentioned, nor the generators, nor the Spartan-II Red Team.

So, they ignored TFoR and First Strike just like that?  (Yes, I remember reading about the bizarre "no nukes" order, which is odd considering a UNSC admiral was going to blow the planet up with nova bombs as a form of extreme asset denial.)

[General Battuta]

Let me get this straight, there's a bunch of Spartan-III's on Reach, for no good reason, considering their purpose as soldiers who could complete suicide missions by dint of sheer numbers, and there's one single S-II in Noble Team, which makes no sense considering he should be with the rest of the S-II's that are supposed to be protecting the surface power installations so the SMAC's can keep firing.

Actually...there's an intel entry on Bungie.net which does a fair job of explaining why the S-IIIs are on Reach. That element of the backstory I don't find fault with.

But the SMACs are never mentioned, nor the generators, nor the Spartan-II Red Team.

So, they ignored TFoR and First Strike just like that?  (Yes, I remember reading about the bizarre "no nukes" order, which is odd considering a UNSC admiral was going to blow the planet up with nova bombs as a form of extreme asset denial.)

Ah, I actually do remember a nuclear hold order being issued in TFoR for a very good reason: the EMP would burn out the MAC guns.

(Which was bull**** but...hey, at least they tried.)

[SpardaSon21]

That was in close proximity to the SMAC's.  I explicitly remember Cortana remote-piloting the SHIVA-armed Longsword into the Covenant flagship's shield sphere while the shields were down, then detonating it when the shields came back up so the explosion would be contained by them and have no place to go but the ship.

[General Battuta]

That was in close proximity to the SMAC's.  I explicitly remember Cortana remote-piloting the SHIVA-armed Longsword into the Covenant flagship's shield sphere while the shields were down, then detonating it when the shields came back up so the explosion would be contained by them and have no place to go but the ship.

Er...then why are you saying anything about a nuclear hold order? I can't remember any other ones being issued.

Bear in mind the Pillar of Autumn is going to have trouble getting anywhere near any sort of Covenant flagship as it's apparently on the surface of Reach in a drydock when the main Covenant fleet arrives. 

Oh and the Covenant has 22km long ships now.

[Akalabeth Angel]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

[MR_T3D]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

I like this logic
'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

[SpardaSon21]

That was in close proximity to the SMAC's.  I explicitly remember Cortana remote-piloting the SHIVA-armed Longsword into the Covenant flagship's shield sphere while the shields were down, then detonating it when the shields came back up so the explosion would be contained by them and have no place to go but the ship.

Er...then why are you saying anything about a nuclear hold order? I can't remember any other ones being issued.

Bear in mind the Pillar of Autumn is going to have trouble getting anywhere near any sort of Covenant flagship as it's apparently on the surface of Reach in a drydock when the main Covenant fleet arrives. 

Oh and the Covenant has 22km long ships now.

What the ****...?

[General Battuta]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

I like this logic
'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

The use of nukes in Reach wouldn't have impacted the gameplay; they would've been used on ships.

[NGTM-1R]

'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

Defcon disagrees. So does my Harpoon experience. Nuclear D/B, away!

[mxlm]

Harpoon had nuclear weaponry?

Almost makes me want to grapple with the interface. Almost.

[General Battuta]

Harpoon had nuclear weaponry?

Almost makes me want to grapple with the interface. Almost.

Well bear in mind there were no visual effects, so it was just 'fire it, watch destruction reports'.

[mxlm]

Well, right, but the destruction report from a nuclear depth charge probably would have been hilarious.

"You sank your own battlegroup. Nice job, sir"

[Akalabeth Angel]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

I like this logic
'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

The use of nukes in Reach wouldn't have impacted the gameplay; they would've been used on ships.

Yeah but the lack of nukes allowed the writers to shoe-horn in some fighter space combat and some marine boarding action. So I'd say it affects game play.

[General Battuta]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

I like this logic
'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

The use of nukes in Reach wouldn't have impacted the gameplay; they would've been used on ships.

Yeah but the lack of nukes allowed the writers to shoe-horn in some fighter space combat and some marine boarding action. So I'd say it affects game play.

So now I'm not sure what point is being made here. We were discussing whether a 'no nukes' order was given.

[Akalabeth Angel]

There's a simple reason Nukes weren't used. Because they're boring! That's why.

I like this logic
'press X to nuke' is boring compared to shooting aliens.

The use of nukes in Reach wouldn't have impacted the gameplay; they would've been used on ships.

Yeah but the lack of nukes allowed the writers to shoe-horn in some fighter space combat and some marine boarding action. So I'd say it affects game play.

So now I'm not sure what point is being made here. We were discussing whether a 'no nukes' order was given.

No, you were discussing how it made no sense that Reach didn't have nukes to use instead of the slipdrive op that appears in the game, that is you said <<Lib, you cool dude, the Spartans in the campaign explicitly said that they wanted to use nukes on the Covenant, but that all their nuclear capability had been taken out.>>. To which I said there's a reason they didn't have nukes, because nukes are boring. You countered by saying Nukes wouldn't affect game play because nukes would only be used against ships (ie situated in space). To which I say that clearly the presence of nukes would affect game play because then the slip-drive operation arc would have no place in the story and there would be no space combat and no covenant-ship assault, etcetera.

Or in other words, the lack of nukes was problem put into the story for the sole purpose that the Spartan team would have a reason to go into space, fight in combat spacecraft and assault a covenant corvette. Because if they did have nukes presumably they could just nuke the enemy fleet into oblivion or whatnot.

[General Battuta]

Which is all utterly tangential because this was an argument about Lib's assertion that nukes were not used because of hippies being worried about environmental damage.

You almost made it back far enough but didn't get there.

[NGTM-1R]

Well, right, but the destruction report from a nuclear depth charge probably would have been hilarious.

"You sank your own battlegroup. Nice job, sir"

I always liked it because if you forced a nuclear D/B drop from an Orion on a doubtful sonar contact, you got a kill. Every time. Same thing with nuclear ASROC. Takes the frustration out of ASW.

[Akalabeth Angel]

Which is all utterly tangential because this was an argument about Lib's assertion that nukes were not used because of hippies being worried about environmental damage.

You almost made it back far enough but didn't get there.

I don't care what Lib's arguing about, I was presenting my own argument as to why Nukes were not used (they're boring). You were responding to my argument not his, therefore how is Lib's relevant?

[General Battuta]

Which is all utterly tangential because this was an argument about Lib's assertion that nukes were not used because of hippies being worried about environmental damage.

You almost made it back far enough but didn't get there.

I don't care what Lib's arguing about, I was presenting my own argument as to why Nukes were not used (they're boring). You were responding to my argument not his, therefore how is Lib's relevant?

Because I wasn't responding to you. Like I said above, if nukes were used in Reach it would've probably been in a cinematic sense, not in gameplay.