Glassing

"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!"

- Prophet of Truth



The term Glassing, also known as Plasma Bombardment, is used to refer to the act by which a Covenant ship or ships bombard a planet from orbit using their plasma weaponry.

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History
Since the formation of the Covenant in 852 B.C the Covenant have used their ship-borne plasma weapons to threaten the lesser species of the Covenant into a truce and their eventual induction into the Covenant. The Lekgolo were the first to be threatened which such destruction because of their transgressions against Forerunner technology before becoming the first outside species to join the Covenant in 784 B.C.. The Unggoy almost faced orbital bombardment for their Rebellion in 2462 C.E Human calendar, or the 39th Age of Conflict by Covenant records. Although the Kig-Yar were not threatened with orbital bombardment, they were quick to realize the Covenant had such a capacity to destroy them and thus chose to join the Covenant for greater wealth that the Covenant would provide.

Human-Covenant War
After the discovery of the Humans and the Prophets call for humanity's destruction, the Covenant would put all of their destructive methods to use, and throughout the Human-Covenant War, the Covenant aggressors glassed a significant majority of the UNSC's colony worlds from orbit. And although ground forces were invariably deployed first, as UNSC forces were routed in space, the bombardment would commence. The first planet to suffer this fate was Harvest, glassed from the Jiralhanae-operated cruiser Rapid Conversion.

The destruction of a Human controlled world varies upon many different factors, from the world itself and its defenses, to the requirements of the Covenant fleet and its leader be it a Fleet Master or Prophet. Undeveloped human colonies, ones that are atmospheric contained habitats or stations, are typically destroyed while the rest of the world is left unharmed - however, planets that have been terraformed may be destroyed by many different methods.

It has been noted that areas of interest to the Covenant are left intact for reasons of study or retrieval; however, this is not common, as only three planets have been partially glassed and only when a Forerunner Artifact was discovered. After the Covenant glasses a planet, a shard of glass is removed and placed in the Step of Silence within High Charity, where it hangs with hundreds of other shards from worlds glassed by the Covenant.

The Battle of Earth culminated in the glassing of the city of Voi in Africa by Covenant Separatists, in an effort to contain a Flood infestation which had come to Earth only hours earlier. Lord Hood accuses the Sangheili lead fleet of glassing half of the continent, but given his distaste for his former enemies, he might have exaggerated about the actual extent of the glassing.

Halo Wars
In Halo Wars, the Prophet of Regret faction of the Covenant are able to use the Prophet to call down a Cleansing Beam from an orbiting Covenant ship. Rather than a leader power, this is treated as the unit's secondary ability, using the Y button to guide the beam at the cost of resources every second. It lacks the power of typical glassing maneuvers seen in past canon to balance gameplay. However, the power may be lowered to avoid Covenant casualties.

Trivia

 * By the end of Halo: First Strike and Halo 2, it is believed that the Covenant had glassed 76 planets which were represented by 19 shards in 4 rows in the Step of Silence.
 * It has been noted that UNSC territory encompassed over 800 planets at the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, most of which were glassed by the Covenant.