Talk:Post-Covenant War conflicts

Why do we need a whole new article with this? Isn't this simply just another conflict with the covenant remenent? That SINGLE line regarding "A whole new war" sounds way too much like marketing. I wouldn't read it for canonical implications. Jabberwock xeno (talk) 17:41, 5 June 2013 (EDT)
 * I agree. Myabe we should wait on creating this page until the game actually comes out.--Weeping Angel (talk) 18:35, 5 June 2013 (EDT)
 * A page encompassing the post-Covenant War conflicts against 'Mdama's Covenant and the Prometheans isn't a bad idea per se; I just tend to take issue with these names we're coming up with - or are forced to come up with. On one hand we have to keep the title purely descriptive, but this results in awkward names which sound like they would be better off in a bad fanfiction (this might also tell something about the direction the fiction is headed, but I won't go there). Since the page Human-Promethean war was created, I've been trying to come up with a better title for the post-war conflicts, with little success.


 * As for this article, I proposed we take the capital letters off the title to drive home that this is still a description (in the vein of the many references to wars in The Forerunner Saga), but this is really only part of the problem: more strict and encompassing application of such a policy wouldn't allow for titles like Second Battle of Requiem of for that matter the capitalization of the word "Battle" in any battle article, unless that engagement has been specifically named in an official source. So it's a double-edged sword really, and I wouldn't go so far as to change our titling standards in battle articles - slightly speculative as they may be - for the sakes of presentation. This particular article, however, I think might benefit from a title change to show that the war hasn't been officially named, in contrast to the original Human-Covenant War.


 * I just hope 343i comes up with a nice, preferably succinct name as quickly as possible - something like "Reclamation War" springs to mind. However, I've been less than satisfied with the way they name things: for example, by insisting on calling Jul 'Mdama's faction simply "Covenant", they're forcing us to use a fan-made descriptor to distinguish it from the original hegemony. Descriptors are not a bad thing by default but they have an annoying tendency of spontaneously gaining unintended capital letters and sticking as proper names in fan vernacular, even within this very wiki (Covenant remnant is probably the most notorious example). So even if we did remove the capitals off this page's title, there would no doubt be people rendering it as a proper name - at the very least capitalizing the word "human" if nothing else. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 12:09, 6 June 2013 (EDT)


 * As a suggestion, why don't we rename this article as a "conflict" instead of a war, like the Human-Covenant Conflict. From what we've seen thus far, the religious cult we labeled as the "Covenant Remnant" have not the necessary resources for a full blown "war". Reason I suggest this is that the UNSC has only dedicated a few ships at a time (at most a battlegroup) to a particular campaign with the enemy (i.e. the Requiem Campaign) and it seems to be the same with the battle at Draetheus V. -


 * It seems more like a new war than a simple conflict. The "whole new war" part seems to mark the beginning of a war between Jul 'Mdama's Covenant and the UNSC. The battle of Draetheus V is probably one of the first battles of this war. There are probably other engagements between Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo 4. The third book of the Kilo-Five trilogy will probably shed light on this part of the story. As for the battles of Requiem, they are battles that occured in this war. Basically, to me, it appears that all the battles from Draetheus V to the destruction of Requiem are in the same war. In this "new war", Jul 'Mdama appears to be the leader of the new Covenant order. Everywhere, 343i call them the "Covenant", the new Covenant order, the re-established Covenant, etc. I'm wondering if Jul could have simply recreated the Covenant, though with some differences (By tweaking the religion a little bit: no Prophets, just the Elites as leaders). You just do that and, well, it's still somehow the Covenant. Even if the union with the Prophets has been shattered, it would be easy to unify A LOT of the previous members and then continue to behave exactly like during the Human-Covenant War. We can also consider that their goal has changed as much as their leaders (It's less about the rings, and more about the artifacts and the Forerunners themselves). But even with that, it still pretty much fits what the Covenant religion is. It's just like... something smarter. There isn't much information about the Separatists, so it's hard to determine how many Covenant factions exist (The Arbiter's faction, the Servants of Abiding Truth...). I think the Servants of Abiding Truth probably allied with Jul's new Covenant, and as for the Arbiter, he probably did not, however if he and his faction learnt what ONI did to them, it would be hard for them to trust again the humans because of their lies (and the Arbiter's faction would probably shatter). TL;DR: The new Covenant are less "Covenant remnant" and more "Jul 'Mdama's Covenant".


 * As for naming the war itself (between Jul and the UNSC), it's hard to find a correct name, as for now maybe we should remove some of the capital letters as suggested. I'm also totally for merging the article Second human-Covenant war and Human-Promethean war. As I said, I consider the conflicts happening on Requiem as a part of the war Jul is waging against the UNSC. The return of the Prometheans is merely part of the war, Jul is still pretty much the leader in this war (during Spartan Assault, half of Halo 4's Campaign, and in Spartan Ops - and I'm not even taking into account the next Kilo-Five novel). The Didact temporarily became the leader, but that was just for a very short time (so he should still be mentioned as a leader, but not the first one).Imrane-117 (talk) 15:55, 21 June 2013 (EDT)

A solution
To the article title, that is. As discussed above, and as witnessed in practice, the current title is hardly ideal for many reasons. It's long, it's ugly and it's clumsy in that it fails to wholly convey all aspects of the conflict, just like "human-Promethean war" did. That and it's one of our most notorious modern-day instances of the URF syndrome, which tends to be an inevitable consequence wherever we use a descriptor rendered in lower case: people both here and elsewhere fail to wrap their heads around the fact it isn't an established proper name and so you come across people using names like "Covenant Remnant" somewhere off-site (though that particular case might also have to do with Halo Nation's capitalization of that title... ugh.)

I got fed up with this title long ago but the problem always was the lack of a better alternative. I've entertained the idea of using the name "Reclamation conflict" for a while but it always felt like it was teetering dangerously close to fanon. But I realized that might not be entirely true, or at least that it's hardly any more offending than what we currently have. My reasons:

It is descriptive, even more so than the current title, despite appearing somewhat abstract at first. The "reclamation" is a legit in-universe event or a series of events which is at the centerpiece of the postwar Halo universe (including the name of the new game series), and any significant conflict is intrinsically tied to it in many respects, not the least of which is the Didact-Librarian dynamic. It relates to the reasons and motivations behind the hostilities instead of listing a rigid set of participants, thus making it more encompassing than any vs. combination of factions we could come up with, barring something like "Human/Lifeworker-Covenant/Promethean war", which I never hope to see. As for why use "conflict" over "war", it sounds more neutral and inclusive and perhaps better conveys the less defined nature of the event.

It's also very succinct, and it's easy on the eyes while being strictly descriptive. And if I had to choose whether the average fan on the Waypoint forums calls it the "Reclamation Conflict" (because the capital letters are bound to happen anyways) or the "Second Human-Covenant War" (by extension calling the original war the "First Human-Covenant War") I definitely choose the former. As long as we use the article title caveat and perhaps a note, it should be fine. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 00:55, 8 November 2013 (EST)
 * I completely agree, it would be way better than what we have now.-- 01:07, 8 November 2013 (EST)