Glassing
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- "You are, all of you, vermin. Cowering in the dirt thinking, what, I wonder? That you might escape the coming fire? No. Your world will burn until its surface is but glass!"
- — The Prophet of Truth, to humans regarding Earth[1]
The term glassing, more formally known as plasma bombardment,[2] is used to refer to the act by which the Covenant's ships bombard a planet from orbit by using heavy plasma weaponry. Human colonies destroyed by this process would come to be referred to as the "glasslands".[3] Multiple worlds have fallen with this fate.
Doctrine[edit]
The process of glassing a planet begins when a fleet has achieved air and space superiority on an enemy-controlled world. The specifics of the glassing process vary depending on the strategic significance of the planet or the orders of the Fleet Master. A Minor Prophet or Minister is typically assigned to most Covenant fleets to oversee the destruction of a human world. In some or possibly all instances, before the fleet is permitted to destroy a planet, the Prophet performs a religious ritual—the Prophet declares by which religious ideal of the Covenant, marked by a glyph, will the world be destroyed. There is currently only one known instance of a human world, Kholo, having a glyph burned into its surface.[4]
Before bombardment commences, all Covenant ground operations cease and local forces are evacuated. The Covenant will then begin glassing the planet from orbit by moving their large warships close together, proceeding to blanket the world's population centers and the surrounding areas with a series of crisscrossing orbits to ensure that the planet is rendered uninhabitable.[5][Note 1] The glassing of a planet by the Covenant is a very taxing process, and requires a massive amount of energy even for a Tier 2 civilization;[4][6] Nevertheless, the Covenant are able to accomplish this feat in an effective manner.
Glassing a planet can take a great deal of time, dependent upon both the tonnage and class of the vessels involved and how many ships are within the fleet. It could take as little as two days[7] or as much as two weeks[8] or longer to complete the process. While partial glassing can be accomplished in a matter of days, covering the entire surface area to the last centimeter would take a prohibitive amount of time. The Assembly believed that, were the Covenant to commit thousands of ships to the task, it would have taken them around thirty years to completely glass Earth alone; Earth's relatively small size, along with a myriad of other factors, would likely cause the thorough glassing of larger planets to take even longer.[6][Note 2]
The alternate way to use this doctrine is for a last-ditch method or the best effective way to deal with a more dangerous threat such as The Flood. Due to imminent action required and should the Flood spread out of control, glassing is the only viable option.
The Covenant has been known to utilize two methods of glassing.
Orbital bombardment[edit]
Typically, when fleet actions require no deployment of ground forces, the Covenant will glass the planet from orbit; this is accomplished by their larger warships gathering close together, aiming their plasma batteries, located along the lateral lines of their warships towards the surface and firing them.[9] Once discharged, the plasma rounds are guided towards the surface, contained in a magnetic bubble and controlled by the ships automation through miles of atmospheric interference until it strikes its intended target. Resembling gigantic fireballs,[10] these plasma lances are a hundred meters across,[10] and strike the surface with tremendous speed and force.
The impact of the plasma lance is similar to that of a nuclear detonation, though on a much different scale. When the plasma bolt impacts the surface, the magnetic field sustaining and guiding the plasma collapses, and, depending on how powerful the release of energy is, the initial zone of impact is obliterated instantly. The areas outside of the initial impact zone are affected by the heat wave generated by the blast; depending on the range, those closest outside of the blast zone are instantly killed by the intense heat. The topsoil in the impact zone and other surface geology become molten and are converted into a mineral called lechatelierite, which is similar to glass. The surrounding areas are blasted with intense heat and are burned.[4] The blast is accompanied by intense radiation, measured in tens of millions of roentgens.[11]
Subsequently, the atmosphere is saturated with millions of tons of ash, debris, and soot that are thrown up from the initial impact, blocking sunlight and dramatically lowering the amount of sunlight reaching the planets surface, subjecting it to an impact winter. As the ground zero area cools, the surface is covered by extensive areas of molten soil.[12]
Low-altitude bombardment[edit]
When ground engagements are in effect, the Covenant will resort to low range bombardment, bringing their ships closer to the surface to destroy the area in question. This is accomplished by either building up or focusing plasma though a magnetic envelope from the energy projector located on the underside of the ship, and then discharging the plasma as a narrow beam. A single Ket-pattern battlecruiser can glass approximately one acre of a planet's surface in fifteen seconds of sustained fire, with desert taking less time and deep ocean taking much longer to glass.[6] The Covenant use low-range bombardment in many battles where major ground engagements are occurring; smaller warships use this method specifically to deal with human armies and low-level structures during campaigns, while larger Covenant warships use this to level cities while engagements are occurring.
Low-range bombardment is not performed solely by energy projectors; smaller Covenant ships like corvettes are equipped with bombardment guns that fire smaller, less-powerful lances than those utilized by capital ships.[13] Capital ships and some smaller ships are equipped with excavation beams to excavate areas of interest for the Covenant, such as unearthing the Portal to Installation 00 during the Battle of Earth.
The Covenant sometimes glassed areas while their ground forces were still in the vicinity, ruthless as they were to eliminate humans.[11][14]
During the Great Schism, the Sangheili-led fleet uses Low-altitude bombardment for maximum efficiency to scorch the Flood down to the ground. This method is the last-ditch effort should the Flood spreads uncontrollably and to quarantine the area to prevent further outbreak.[15][16]
Aftermath[edit]
- "The brittle black shit on the outskirts of the huge swathes of destruction the Covenant leaves behind isn't actually glass, of course. It's what you get when you melt everything in the area into a chemical soup and let it cool and harden on its own—more like obsidian from a volcano than anything else."
- — Edward Buck, on the aftermath of a planet's glassing[17]
