Halo: The Fall of Reach

Halo: The Fall of Reach is a prequel to  Halo: Combat Evolved and is also the first novel to be published. Written by Eric Nylund and published on October 30, 2001.

The novel was reportedly finished in seven weeks, eventually becoming a Publisher's Weekly bestseller with nearly two hundred thousand copies sold in the United States and United Kingdom.

Summary
The book starts from the very beginning of the elite military division known as the Spartans were trained; as well as all of the events leading up to the start of Halo: Combat Evolved. Later on in the book the Office of Naval Intelligence receives a transmission sent by a new threat, the Covenant, a large race of aliens who have been watching and studying human civilization for a few years. The Covenant has attacked the human colony planet "Harvest". The first message the humans recorded was transmitted after the attack on Harvest in English and was: "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument!" This message was also in Halo 3's E3 demo as well as in the finalized game. Truth says this line in the beginning cut scene of the level Crows Nest. Armed with state-of-the-art weaponry Master Chief and his Spartans seek to destroy the Covenant and to keep Reach under the control of the Human race. The book details the following engagements: the Battle of Harvest, the Battle of Jericho VII, the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, the Battle of Chi Ceti, the Battle of Reach and Operation: TREBUCHET.

DATE: August 17, 2517 - August 30, 2552

Story Synopsis
The prologue begins on the planet Jericho VII on February 12, 2535 and it reveals the Spartans as a whole as well as their purpose. As the seemingly unstoppable Covenant war-machine moves into place to Glass Jericho VII, a young team of Spartan super soldiers are sent to prevent the destruction of the planet. Unfortunately, their mission is unsuccessful, and they retreat to their nearby vessel and watch as the planet is glassed.

The story itself begins with Dr. Catherine Halsey and Lieutenant Jacob Keyes on board the Han, a UNSC diplomatic shuttle. Their mission is to identify a potential candidate, John, for Halsey's Spartan-II program. The plot then goes on to show in detail the brutal indoctrination and training regime that John and the other Spartans are put through and are taken away from their family. Chief Petty Officer Mendez trains the Spartan II's, showing them the many virtues required (ex. courage, skill, etc.) while Deja (an AI created by Dr. Halsey for the Spartan-II program) teaches them history, mathematics and physics. After a daring training mission, John is made squad leader of the remaining Spartans. Later, the Chief meets Cortana (Halsey's identical AI) and, through teamwork, pass a test, which required them to pass a anti-tank minefield, kill/injure fellow soldiers, and survive air-raids from a SkyHawk jumpjet armed with rockets, but not without quite a few scratches and bruises.

On February 3, 2525 first contact is made with an alliance of alien races that refers to itself as The Covenant (although it is frequently mentioned that, at this point, humanity does not fully understand the Covenant caste system). On that day, a single Covenant Warship exterminated the entire surface population of the Outer Colony Harvest. Three UNSC battleships are sent to investigate this incident, initiated first engagement protocols and attempted contact, engaged the Covenant ship in battle, and are subsequently routed. Only one, the Heracles, manages to return to Reach badly damaged. By December of the same year, the UNSC has mobilized a massive Fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Preston Cole, with orders to reclaim the Harvest Colony and stop the Covenant advance.

Cole's Fleet manages a victory at Harvest, but at a high cost - two thirds of his ships are destroyed. Despite significant tactical brilliance on the part of Human commanders, Covenant technology guarantees a four to one kill/loss ratio in most battles. One by one, the Outer Colonies fall to the onslaught and by 2535, all have been destroyed.

To protect the location of Earth, the UNSC established the Cole Protocol. If any Covenant are present, activate selective purge of databases on all ship based and planetary data networks. When human forces are forced into retreat, they must not execute a Slipspace jump in the direction of Earth, or any major population center, even if this forces them to jump without the necessary navigational calculations (a "blind jump"). If such a jump is not possible, and if capture is imminent, the Captain must order a self-destruct. The on-board ship AI construct, normally imperative to navigation and tactical decisions, must either be destroyed or removed.

However, due to the shortage of good officers, Keyes was promoted to Commander in 2552 and assumed command of the UNSC Iroquois. Shortly thereafter, he foresaw a Covenant attack on Sigma Octanus IV thanks to a paper by SPARTAN-084. His actions resulted in the destruction of a Covenant Destroyer, two Frigates and chasing off a Covenant Carrier with a daring maneuver dubbed the "Keyes Loop". This unprecedented victory against a Covenant force earned him a promotion to UNSC Captain and helped him to become recognized by the entire UNSC. Keyes and the Iroquois remained in the Sigma Octanus system to partake in The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. He later returned to Reach (inadvertently disclosing the location of Reach to the Covenant via a homing beacon attached to the Iroquois) and was debriefed by an ONI council. Here he met SPARTAN-117 once again.

By 2552, many of Humanity's Inner Colonies have been destroyed by the Covenant. In a move of desperation, the Office of Naval Intelligence Section-3 SPARTAN division orders the execution of a secret plan to capture a Covenant ship using their SPARTAN forces and find their home world in order to capture a Prophet, one of their religious leaders. A group of Spartans, led by the Master Chief, are chosen for this mission, and board a specially outfitted Halcyon class cruiser known as the Pillar of Autumn (under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes). This plan, however, is interrupted by the necessity of destroying the Navigational Database of the UNSC Circumference, a Prowler, still docked at a station orbiting Reach just before its fall. The rest of the Spartans were sent down to the planet to defend the Orbital MAC generators. During the Battle of Reach,Reach is overrun and glassed, and the UNSC Fleet is obliterated. Worse still, the Master Chief thinks that all of the Spartans but himself are killed on the surface of the planet. Cortana plots an exit vector in compliance with the Cole Protocol, though not completely at random. She had decrypted Forerunner glyphs found by the Master Chief on Sigma Octanus IV. The NAV coordinates led the Pillar of Autumn to what the Covenant had been searching for: Halo.

Trivia

 * An excerpt of this book, along with Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike, was included in a directory on Halo PC. It is found on the disc, under the "Goodies" section.


 * In the final three sections of the book, starting at Sigma Octanus IV there is a typo which records all events as occurring 2542 instead of 2552.


 * Interestingly enough, the first section of this book is titled "Reveille" and involves characters emerging from cryo-sleep. The first section from Halo: Combat Evolved is also appropriately titled "Reveille" and also involves someone waking from cryo-sleep. Reveille is a traditional bugle call of the U.S. military, sounded at the start of each day on military installations to wake up the troops.


 * The power of the energy shields on the Covenant ships is inconsistent following the canon of the universe and this book. In one instance, a ship hit with nuclear warhead is still functional, actually appearing to shrug the explosion off. However, during a battle with Keyes using a pair against two Covenant ships (which were larger then the one from the previous instance), the EMP from the warheads knocks out the shields on the ships through the potent blast. Though it could be explained that in the years following the first Nuke attack on a Covenant ship, the UNSC might have upgraded its nukes.


 * At the end of the book, there is the Halo: Combat Evolved logo with a rating box, saying that it is rated T (Teen) while it is actually rated M (Mature).


 * In Halo 3, Cortana states several quotes from this book, all of which are Dr. Halsey's. Such as: "Can I speak with you please? What's your name? It's very nice to meet you. You like games? So do I.", "You have been called upon to serve, you will be trained...and you will become the best we can make you. You will be the Protectors of Earth and all her Colonies.", and "Could you sacrifice yourself to complete your mission? Could you watch him die?"(In the game, "yourself" and "him" are changed to "me", referring to Cortana) However, this may be because she was malfunctioning, Cortana was "spawned" from Dr. Halsey's mind.


 * In Halo 3 at the beginning of the arrival clip scene, there is a reference to Spartan 117 being extremely lucky. Master Chief's luck was mentioned quite a bit during the series. Notably, John's luck is shown when Dr. Halsey flips an old coin.


 * The Battle of Reach is one of the only documented battles in which a Covenant Supercruiser participated in the battle.


 * Like the other novels in the Halo series, the book follows several characters.


 * Both Sam (correctly) and Fhajad (incorrectly) are given the service tag 034 in the book.


 * The Chinese version has many unacceptable mistakes: e.g. Cortana mentioned that there were 314 Covenant ships whereas the Chinese version stated that there were 31,400 Covenant ships. Also in Chapter 36, the "UNSC Pillar of Autumn had translated into Pelican dropship. It was speculated that these mistakes occurred because of poor translations.


 * In the beginning of the book the Grunts are said to sound like dogs and their speech could not be translated. Yet ın all three Halo games you can understand the Grunts. This is most likely because the UNSC's translation software has been upgraded in the later games.


 * In the first half or so of the book, a typo removes most "fi" pairs in the italicized text (as seen in the words "start le" in which the first two letters are missing from the word "file").


 * In Halo 2's cinema for the defense of the MAC Station, it is said that Reach was attacked with 50 times as many ships. This translates into defending Earth from only six or seven ships, as the Battle of Reach involved 314 Covenant Ships.
 * On the cover, between the "A" and the "L" in the word Halo, there is a Marathon symbol.