Halo: The Fall of Reach

Halo: The Fall of Reach is a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved and is also the first Halo book. 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 America and the United Kingdom.

Summary
The book describes how 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 (ONI) receives a transmission sent by a new threat, the Covenant, a race of alien invaders who have been watching and studying our civilization for a few years. The first message the humans recorded goes like this: "Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instruments". This message was also in Halo's E3 demo. 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.

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 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.

On February 3, 2525 first contact is made with an alliance of alien races that refers to itself as The Covenant. 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 below the onslaught and by 2535, all have been destroyed.

To protect the location of Earth, the UNSC establish the Cole Protocol. When human forces are forced into retreat, they must not execute a Slipspace jump in the direction of Earth, 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.

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 a secret plan to capture a Covenant ship using their SPARTAN forces and find their home world and 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 ship 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 a ship still docked at a station orbiting Reach just before its fall. During this battle, Reach is overrun and glassed, and the Human 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.

For more information on the battle click here Battle of Reach.

Trivia

 * There are several inaccuracies in the book, among which are the Banshees being described as needing to wait for their plasma cannons to recharge. But it could be a misprint referring to the Fuel Rod Guns on a Banshee as they do need a few seconds before they can be shot again.


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


 * If you count the number of dead Spartans (30), with critically damaged Spartans (12), ejected out of the program, and divide it by 6, you'll get Bungie's favorite number: 7. (42÷6=7)


 * Interestingly, 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 a bit 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 where 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, although nuclear explosions also generate an EMP effect.


 * In 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)
 * Although this is the first book in the Halo series, there is absolutely no mention of the mysterious SPARTAN-I Project (ORION).
 * The Banshees don't seem to be able to hover or go backwards, they have to turn and make passes.
 * In Halo 3, there is a reference to Spartan 117 being lucky. Master Chief's luck was mentioned a lot during the series.
 * The Battle of Reach is one of the only documented battles in which a Covenant Supercruiser participated in the battle.
 * In the beginning of the book, seventy-five children are led in. This means, that by the time that they were two years into the program, there were only sixty-seven canidates left. By the time that they pass the augmentation stage, only thirty-three spartans are left. This means that not all of the canidates even made it to the augmentation stage. What was done to them, we can only guess. However, some of the S-IIs that failed the augumentation where made into ONI operatives.