The Battle of Reach – Complete Timeline

[Music] welcome back Canaanites ever since its launch in 2010 Halo Reach has been a point of contention for fans for many halo the fall of reach was and remains a beloved story so when Halo Reach came along and seemingly retcon the entire finale of the book needless to say fans were not pleased to this day there is a website called Halo Reach dot is not canon dotnet where one can see just how hard parts of the community took the game's release however a large part of the community instead of lamenting the changes and arguing why slash how things should be took to the task of making Halo Reach and halo the fall of reach along with early sections of Halo first-strike work together released with the limited and legendary editions of Halo Reach was the personal Journal of dr. Catherine Halsey an invaluable tool towards the merging of these two stories written by Eric Nylund the author of fall of reach it's clear he goes to great lengths to make his book fit with bungees vision for Halo Reach when 343 industries took over the Halo franchise they formally announced that both Halo Reach and halo the fall of reach were canon and released a series of data drops in 2011 that further help bridge the gap between these two stories on May 25th 2013 I released a video titled the battle of reach timeline bringing together years of community sleuthing along with a bit of my own extra work presenting what I believed at the time to be a near definitive timeline of events for the fall of reach merging the various sources together as neatly and comprehensively as I could while I'm still proud of this video and it mostly holds up new information released since 2013 has added more detail and backstory to the fall of reach with Halo Reach on its way to PC there's no better time to revisit the battle of reach timeline adding in more detail and events that have since been revealed notably in the campaign booklet for halo fleet battles and to a lesser degree halo mythos as we dive in it's important to note that a major source of discrepancies between the game and books is how dates and times are treated both halo reach and halo the fall of reach use the standard UNSC military calendar for their dates but while the book uses a military standard 24-hour clock Halo Reach uses the local reach clock with reach having 27 hour days so the dates are the same between the two mediums but the times are not as such throughout this presentation I will state the date then the time in both the UNSC standard military time and reach local time the difference in times will not be consistent since again reach has a 27 hour day with that sit back relax and enjoy this presentation of the battle of reach unknown date unknown time at some point prior to his invasion of reach supreme commander roba Ruta me came upon the human system of beta Eridani thanks to his ships luminary a forerunner device that could detect and locate other forerunner relics though he only had 10 ships at the time the local UNSC forces were primarily cadets ro orders any UNSC forces eliminated while he recovers the local forerunner artifacts when plugged into his luminary they point him to another system one which held the sigil of the ancient forerunner builders an explorer and collector ro hopes that whatever these relics points you might finally lead him to the fabled homeworld of the forerunners July 18th 2300 hours military time in the aftermath of the Battle of Sigma Atanas for Admiral Michael stand forth contacts the head of Oni Admiral Margaret Baron Gauss key he talks about the narrow victory at Sigma Thomas for and the discovery of non covenant alien artifacts much like the ones found on Onix Arcadia and reach July 19th Oh 325 hours military time perigorskiy response to stand forth and brings up concerns about the possibility of reach being targeted by the Covenant in the coming months she brings up Operation red flag a desperate plan whose goals would be to capture covenant leadership and force a truce unknown dates unknown time upon arriving in the Epsilon Eridani system ro dispatches his artifact hunting team a zealot group known as the devout centuries to find forerunner artifacts on the world humanity calls reach July 23rd 1600 hours military time 2,600 hours reach contact with visit grad relay is lost the relay one of reaches three primary communication relays has been taken out effectively cutting off reach from the rest of the UNSC sixteen 15 hours military time 26:15 reach fireteam three Charlie and other army fire teams are deployed to visit grad to investigate the communications blackout under the command of Colonel Holland July 24th Oh 28 hours military time Oh 728 reach noble team a Special Warfare team comprised mostly of Spartan threes is joined by a new member Spartan b3 one two under the call sign of noble six Colonel Holland after no success with the fire teams deploy Spartan team noble to visit grad not long after arriving noble engages with covenant forces after rescuing the survivors of three Charlie Noble deploys to the relay only to find itself under fire noble briefly engages with local covenant forces and not long after is able to establish fragile contact with Colonel Holland and warn him of the covenants presence winter contingency is declared due to the severe plasma damage of its technical components the relay would not be repaired for at least two weeks and most of reach and the UNSC would remain largely unaware of the danger present on the planet July 26th ten twenty six hours military time 11:26 reach noble team is deployed to only sword base to take care of covenant forces and a covenant Corvette attacking the site due to the sensitive nature of the site orbital defenses cannot be used until the Corvette is far enough away noble team is sent to secure the base and surrounding outposts after ground and air support are eliminated longswords push the Corvette to a safe distance where it is shot down by an orbital magnetic accelerator Canon or Mac after the battle noble debriefs dr. Halsey the head of the Spartan 2 program and a civilian scientist working for the office of naval intelligence or oniy about the events at visit red and returns a data module found at the relay August 1st o 250 hours military time 1250 reach Admiral stand forth returns to reach with some of the battle group from Sigma act on us for the rest staying behind in case more covenants show up he contacts perigorskiy and raises concerns about you reach for Operation red flag which would call for using a UNSC planet as bait to draw in a large covenant force a UNSC force would then use the opportunity to board a covenant craft and take it back to the covenant homeworld despite his concerns stand forth for words the specs for red flag and recommendations for the assets needed to carry it out August 5th time unknown following a lengthy discussion dr. Halsey splits off a fragment of her smart AI Cortana the main Cortana unit would continue her essential role with operation red flag while the fragment would be used to study the massive forerunner artifact on her sword base unknown date unknown time following the declaration of winter contingency the crew of the UNSC stellar station who had spent years studying strange artifacts hidden on a planetoid in Epsilon Eridani Azure cloud have been ordered to condense a long planned retrieval operation into barely afford night unfortunately during this operation they would activate forerunner senescence systems attracting the attention of rose fleet of valiant prudence the crew of teller station work to remove an artifact from site 17 while being defended by UNSC ships commanded by Admiral stand forth hoping to keep the artifact out of covenant hands August 11th nineteen thirty hours military time 26:30 reach June a to 66 callsign noble 3 along with mobile 6 infiltrate a covenant controlled dark zone discovering a large covenant invasion force August 12th Oh 400 hours military time Oh 800 hours reach mobile team and the UNSC army launched a counter-attack on the bulk of the covenant invasion force that Nobles 3 & 6 had discovered the night before smaller invasion forces meanwhile arc fought across the DRA territory most of reach and the UNSC would be kept in the dark about the Covenant presence on reach under the winter contingency after taking out local anti-air batteries George oh five - callsign noble five and the only Spartan - member of noble team is sent with mobile 6 - a covenant spire meant to ferry troops and armaments to the surface the spire is covered by an energy shield that prevents its destruction once the shield is deactivated by nobles 5 & 6 UNSC frigate Grafton is sent in to take out the spire almost immediately however the Grafton is destroyed by a covenant super carrier that was being cloaked by the spires 1100 hours military time 1500 hours reach Spartan john-117 unaware of the covenant presence on reach arrives at Camp Hathcock to be debriefed on the events of the battle of Sigma Tata's floor he briefly runs into captain Jacob Keyes and dr. Halsey August 13th nineteen oh seven hours military time 2007 hours reach reach has been invaded and though the fighting is currently contained to the northern VRE territory 60% of the UNSC fleet has been recalled to reach with the first ship scheduled to arrive in 48 hours noble team feels that's too long noble - Kat B 3 2 0 comes up with a plan to rig a slipspace device to take out the Covenant super carrier above reach her plan is to use the top-secret sabre program of which noble 6 was a test pilot to get the Spartans into orbit to deliver the subspace bomb Carter a 259 noble one contacts Colonel Holland about the plan - which he agrees August 14th 14 48 hours military time 12:48 reach noble team arrives at the saber launch facility after retaking the facility Nobles five and six launch into space and join operation uppercuts with the support of the UNSC Savannah the saber squads are able to board the covenant Corvette and lock it into a refuelling track with the supercarrier at the same time operation left jab is enacted to distract the rest of the Covenant fleet unfortunately during Operation uppercut noble five would be forced to sacrifice himself to initiate the slip space bomb after the time it was damaged George oh five two dies thinking he had just saved reach however it is only moments later that a covenant support fleet under the command of the ministry of resolution arrives at reach they eventually make it past orbital defenses and start attacking major population centers in the northern VRE territory unknown date unknown time roba root to me is dead following operation uppercut his second-in-command can't are utterly takes control of what remains of the fleet of valiant prudence engaging with UNSC forces near reaches moon Toril cantar makes a last-ditch effort to recover the forerunner artifact from site 17 August 23rd 17:34 hours military time 15:34 reach noble six arrives in new Alexandria five days after the Covenant started attacking the city six helps army forces fight off invasion forces and a covenant Corvette above the city thanks to sixes intervention most of the civilian population is evacuated safely 20 57 hours military time 1857 reach noble six meets up with noble one and is directed to help UNSC forces evacuate from new Alexandria six is successful with the guidance of noble two and among those evacuated our Gutter II sergeant Edward buck and his team alpha nine around this time other Spartan three fire teams gauntlet red and echo are deployed for civilian evacuation operations after completing the evacuation noble six reunites with the rest of noble team just as the Covenant begins glassing the city noble makes for a fallout shelter but as they do is sung Healy Field Marshal Snipes noble to her shield either having not fully engaged yet or was overloaded by the radiation from the glassing the remnants of noble and other survivors retreat into a fallout shelter August 25th Oh 1915 hours military time Oh 115 hours reach Cortana and dr. Halsey discussed various specifics of operation red flag including the ship that would be used and which Spartan to Cortana would choose to carry her agreeing with Cortana's choices the pillar of autumn undergoes heavy refits for red flag sometime after captain Jacob keys would be informed on his new command of the UNSC pillar of autumn operation red flag and the invasion of reach August 26th 1400 hours military time Oh 300 hours reach the remnants of noble team are extracted from new Alexandria soon after they'll be deployed for their next mission August 27th Oh 8 hundred hours military time 2100 hours reach dr. Halsey and Captain Keys debrief the 25 spartan two's that have been recalled to reach for operation red flag they're told that the newly refitted Halcyon class light cruiser the UNSC pillar of autumn will carry the Spartan twos and other UNSC troops deep into covenant space in order to capture a covenant ship find the covenant homeworld and kidnap covenant leadership all in the hopes of forcing a truce with the covenant unknown to the Spartans and most of those chosen for red flag reach will instead be used to lure in the covenant August 29th Oh 600 hours military time 1300 hours reach john-117 arrives at Camp Hathcock he is briefed on the new Mjolnir mark 5 platform that he and the other Spartan Tunes will be using for red flag which includes personal energy shielding and can carry and support a smart AI in order to take full advantage of the ladder capability he receives an upgrade to his standard neural implant approximately Oh nine hundred hours military time 1600 hours reach and the ulnar AI integration field test begins john-117 and AI cortana pass despite attempted sabotage by colonel Ackerson a rival of doctor hall's ease and staunch opponent of the spartan two program nineteen sixteen hours' military time 26:16 reach noble team backed up by OTS teased begins a push to infiltrate elise or base their mission so far as they know is to destroy it and its secrets keeping them out of covenant hands unknown dates unknown time with the pillar of autumn reef it's 98% complete captain keys messages vice admiral Capano and single sub commander of oni section two in reach central command keys expresses frustrations over keeping his crew in the dark about the true status of reach concerned about how it may affect their performance during red flag Oster deaath the fall of reach whoa 400 hours military time Oh 800 hours reach UNSC pillar of autumn is undergoing its final shakedown as it holds geosynchronous orbit over la Batlin captain Keyes begins a tour of the ship and eventually orders it to move on an outbound vector from reach meanwhile Cortana gets some revenge on Colonel Ackerson for his actions against her and john-117 during the AI mueller integration test she also slips into Oni systems to get john-117 s full uncensored service record Oh for 14 hours military time Oh 814 reach Moni section 3 captures a series of conversations from the pillar of autumn's crew conversations note the odd installation of additional thrusters on the autumn along with strange electromagnetic readings when checking the ship's sensors these readings are in fact the already present covenant forces on reach oh for 47 hours military time Oh 847 reach remote scanning outpost fermion detects a massive incoming Covenant fleet and informs fleet comm they self-destruct due to an unsecured Science Library and the covenant forces approximately Oh 500 hours military time Oh 900 hours reach over 300 covenant ships arrived at reach led by the fleet of particular justice meanwhile noble team fights off a small covenant force and makes contact with dr. Halsey under sword base global six has given the Cortana fragment and leaves with nobles 1 and 4 to head to the ship breaking yards in Azad to meet up with the pillar of autumn noble 3 June 8 ooh 66 escorts dr. Halsey to oni castle base as they leave sword base and the forerunner facility below it are destroyed as part of operation white glove dr. Halsey this journal is recovered by Oni agents before the base is destroyed oh five seventeen hours military time oh nine seventeen reach Admiral Rolland Fremont issues a general order to all ships near the Jericho Tantalus and reach systems to initiate the Cole protocol oh five nineteen hours military time oh nine nineteen reach the pillar of autumn turns around and heads back to reach captain Keyes informs the Spartans of the covenant attack on reach oh five fifty eight hours military time oh nine fifty eight reach station gamma dockmaster AI Doppler is unable to implement the Cole protocol on the UNSC circumference due to measures taken to ensure the secrecy of operation hypodermic and only effort to gather information on the covenant Doppler sends a priority message to fleet comm the Covenant detects the error and deploys troops to recover the nav data oh six sixteen hours military time ten sixteen reach john-117 leads Linda oh five eight and James zero five comprising blue team to gamma station to wipe out the nav data on the circumference the twenty two remaining Spartans comprised red team and led by Fred one zero four are sent down to reach a surface to protect the all below defense generators James oh oh five is lost to the vacuum of space not long after boarding gamma station his thruster pack punctured by a needler round sending him flying into the void Oh 631 hours military time 10:31 reach red team's Pelican is shot down the Spartans are forced to jump from the Pelican and make a hard landing this results in four Spartans dead and six seriously injured the survivors would split into four teams to accomplish different tasks alpha red comprised of three Spartans would take out a covenant encampment and their hovering Cruiser Baden red comprised of six Spartans would continue the original mission to defend the remaining orbital defense generators gamma red comprised of three Spartans would retrieve Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb who had radioed for help immediately after the Spartans landing Delta red comprised of six more seriously injured Spartans would secure a fallback point a tawny castle base supported by the remains of marine company Charlie oh six thirty seven hours military time ten thirty seven reache john-117 and linda o58 complete their mission destroying the circumference and even managing to save a number of marine survivors among them sergeant Avery Johnson unfortunately Linda is fatally wounded by plasma fire before escaping upon returning to the autumn John places her in cryo in the hopes that a fleet hospital might be able to resuscitate her oh six forty seven hours military time 10:47 reach captain Keyes orders the autumn to leave the system while john-117 also enters cryo sleep just before they leave a message from dr. Halsey comes through telling keys of noble team and the Cortado fragment Keyes orders the autumn to land in the ship breaking yards and Assad using the opportunity to make minor repairs to his ship those six forty nine hours military time 10:49 reach team beta red sets up defenses around orbital defense generator facility a 33 107 and 11 hours military time eleven eleven reach team alpha red sends a nuclear bomb up the gravity lift of a covenant Cruiser Joshua Oh two nine is lost during the mission meanwhile team Delta red secures a fallback point at castle base and team gamma red rescues Vice Admiral Whitcomb and holds up at Camp independence Oh 720 hours military time eleven twenty reach ODG eighth 31 is destroyed by orbital bombardment and most of beta red is presumed killed Oh 744 ours military time 11:44 reach remaining remnants of red team - gamma red retreat in a castle base Oh a 10 hours military time 12 10 hours reach red team encounters dr. Halsey and castle base she treats the wounded Spartans and informs them about operation white glove June a to 66 is notably absent having been separated from Halsey at some points Oh 901 hours military time 13:01 reach operation white glove is enacted at castle base burying it to keep anything of value out of covenant hands dr. Halsey and several of her Spartans would hide in the caves beneath the base trapped down there for several days 1252 hours military time 1650 to reach the remnants of noble team arrived at Azad Carter a 259 tells noble for Emil a 239 and Noble 6 to bail from their damaged Pelican Carter continues to draw the majority of covenant air forces to himself keeping them off Nobles 4 and 6 Emil and 6 fight their way through covenant forces until they're cut off by a scarab Carter sacrifices himself to allowed noble to continue with their mission after fighting their way to the pillar of autumns location Emil uses a mass driver to take out incoming air support while noble 6 deals with ground forces after noble 6 delivers the Cortana fragment to captain keys the meal is engaged by some healing zealots and killed mobile 6 takes control of the mast driver allowing the pillar of autumn to escape 1600 hours military time twenty hundred hours reach noble six is engaged by overwhelming covenant forces and eventually killed and that concludes the fall of reach more or less skirmishes and battles would continue in the month to follow but the battle is generally considered to be over on August 30th and official UNSC activity would cease by September 5th in summation while Halo Reach in halo the fall of reach don't fit together perfectly with some events needing harder retcons than others the overall stories can be made to work together I'll be up with something of narrative scotch tape 343 have done a monumental job over the years making these work together and though not perfect the clues are there for fans to find and sift through whether you've seen my original timeline or not I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you have seen the original though I'd like to know how you feel about this update let me know in the comments below and while you're down there I got this idea in my head to do something of a behind-the-scenes or making of this timeline well look at the work that went into it both my own and the larger communities let me know what you'd think of that I'm thinking like a live stream or something before we go I'd like to give a huge shout out and thank you to mr. Admirals and eternal Canadian these two fellow Lord nerds helped to review the work I put together here pointing out issues and places where I could expand and add information I had otherwise overlooked so again thank you both that's all for now thanks for watching and until next time this has been halo cannon thanks for watching everyone I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please consider subscribing and if you really love me hit that notification bell and leave a thumbs up these both really help out the channel I wouldn't be where I am now without your views and support so once again thank you keep on being awesome canaanites

Channel: Halo Canon

Views: 358,928

Rating: 4.9461994 out of 5

Keywords: halo, canon, halo3, halo2, haloCE, CE, combat, evolved, anniversary, Halo1, bungie, 343, 343i, Guilty, Spark, xbox, 360, gaming, Halo (series), Halo: Reach (Video Game), Video Game (Industry), Master, Chief, Cortana, official, ToaFreak, Toa, Freak, Lore, didact, librarian, forerunner, One, CEA, ODST, Orbital, Drop, Shock, Trooper, Halo3ODST, HaloODST, books, comics, games

Id: u8d4z5Zg_Bc

Length: 25min 53sec (1553 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/NotPeterDinklagesDad]

1 Reach gets invaded

2 Noble team gets clapped.

3 Reach gets turned into the sequel to Split

[u/BraveExpress2]

That's fantastic. You obviously put a ton of effort in and it shows.

[u/heavensblood12345]

merci beaucoup

[u/darthmarticus17]

Any reason why you never posted this to /r/halostory Toa? That's where it will be appreciated most!

Fantastic work regardless. I enjoyed the timestamps and it was good to get a very detailed look at this intense period.

I know the main impetus to create this was the smoothing over of content from different mediums, but I'd love to see you do this for other periods in detail. Would be good to get a full set of videos covering time periods, like:

• 2510-2524 - Origin of the Spartan Program [Fall of Reach]
• 2525-2526 - Start of the War [Contact Harvest, Fall of Reach, Collateral Damage, Silent Storm, Forward Unto Dawn, Oblivion]
• 2527-2551 - Bulk of the War [Halo Wars, Cole Protocol, Battle Born, Helljumper, Bloodline]
• 2552 - Battle of Reach [Reach, Fall of Reach] (as you've done here)
• 2552 - Installation 4 [Combat Evolved, Fireteam Raven, The Flood, First Strike]
• 2552 - Battle for Earth [Halo 2, ODST, Ghosts of Onyx, Uprising, Halo 3]
• 2553-2557 - Post-war Tensions [Initiation, Kilo-Five trilogy, Last Light, Retribution, Spartan Assault, Hunters in the Dark, Nightfall, Renegades]
• 2557-2558 - Return of John-117 [Halo 4, Spartan Ops, Escalation, Envoy, Legacy of Onyx, Halo 5]
• 2558-? - Created Conflict [Halo Wars 2, Infinite, ?]

By keeping it modular, as new content comes out over the years you can maybe update just certain segments. I'm sure you've covered many of these segments anyway, but just a thought.