Harvest Campaign

The Harvest Campaign was an extended conflict conducted by the UNSC to recapture the former colony of Harvest from the Covenant.

The Campaign

 * 2526 - late 2527: UNSC attempts to retake the world are largely going well. The Covenant are being beaten back quite badly, but are still digging in. Covenant considers Harvest a low-priority area at this point?
 * late-2527: Arrival of a Covenant fleet which masses to take the sliplane to Madrigal. Massive invasions are conducted at Harvest to secure it, and elements of the fleet are deployed to destroy UNSC orbital assets. Some areas are glassed.
 * Late-2528: Cole defeats the Covenant fleet at Madrigal and sends ships and troops to secure Harvest. This helps turn the tide, although the Covenant fleet still poses a threat. Battle goes back-and-forth depending on who has majority orbital control at the time.
 * 2529 or early-2530: Covenant fleet is decisively defeated, with the remnants being mopped up throughout the rest of the conflict.
 * 2531: Last Covenant troops are finally routed, although a last-minute attack by Ripa 'Moramee's Fleet of Glorious Interdiction leads to fighting in the planet's northern pole.

Impact
During the opening battles of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC's sustained control of Harvest gave them a large number of advantages during this critical stage. The most important of these was that it served as a staging area for attacks deep into the Covenant Sphere, largely because of its proximity to their supply lines centered around the Tempest Crossing. UNSC Navy battle groups would destroy millions, if not billions of tons of shipping over the course of the campaign, harming the invading armies as they struggled to get food, material, and replacement manpower. This also drew away enemy warships to patrol the region, leaving their fleets weaker on the frontlines.

Harvest's location also made it an important lynchpin in the UNSC's own logistics network, particularly during the first two years of the Human-Covenant War. A sliplane was present that brought in ships from as far away as Falaknuma, and offered safe access to the shipyards and factories of New Tharsis. While this journey would take weeks, this was still faster than bringing up supplies through the Asgard Stratum. UNSC forces supplied from Harvest were able to draw the Covenant into protracted sieges at Green Hills and Second Base. However, this same sliplane also offered the potential for disaster by opening up a Covenant invasion at the doorstep of the Inner Colonies. This happened in 2528, and it was only because of Vice Admiral Preston Cole's Third Fleet that this attempt was stopped.

In spite of their success, the UNSC would not hold onto Harvest for long after they captured it. By 2531, the Asgard Stratum and the Centaurus Region had almost completely fallen to the Covenant, and attacks in the other Quadrants had rendered Harvest irrelevant as a defensive position or even a jumping-off point for raids. As a result, it was formally abandoned in 2533.