Fall of Reach

The Fall of Reach, also referred to as the Battle of Reach or Reach Campaign was a major military defeat for the UNSC in the final months of the Human-Covenant War. It was fought primarily on and around the colony world of Reach between August 28 and September 14, 2552. Additional conflicts were fought across the Epsilon Eridani system, though these battles are typically grouped under the Fall of Reach banner, despite later efforts to use the term "Fall of Epsilon Eridani" to better represent the duty and loss of those involved in the conflict not in the immediate vicinity of Reach. In the post-war era, the Fall of Reach remains a cultural and political touchstone of the Covenant war, with slogans such as "Remember Reach" prominent amongst the anti-alien factions of humanity.

Prelude
The events leading up to the Fall of Reach remain extremely controversial within the political discourse of humanity even following the end of the war, with multiple widespread causes linked to the planet's fall as it happened.

Insurrectionist scare
By early-mid 2552, the People's Occupation was conducting a number of operations in the more rural areas of the Visegrad region of Reach, causing a number of attacks on military and other strategic facilities in the region, coinciding with a raid on a drydock at Harmony. Around this time, SPARTAN-III NOBLE team returned from their actions at Fumirole, with Reach's extensive medical facilities on-hand to provide an artificial replacement for the arm lost by Kat-B320 in the conflict. By mid-June, NOBLE were assigned to assist the Army's SpecWar Group 3 in dealing with the local insurgent presence, and began a series of highly successful strikes on suspected rebel hideouts throughout the Highland Mountains, Visegrad and the Viery Territory in conjunction with Army teams. Nonetheless, the mobilisation of Army forces into several rural towns such as Pálháza in the region stirred up anti-Earth sentiment, leading to moderate unrest in the region.

Covenant discovery
On July 17, the Covenant Fleet of Particular Justice launched an invasion of Sigma Octanus IV, which was repelled at great cost by the UNSC Navy. During the conflict, Particular Justice was able to use a spy probe to attach itself to the hull plating of the UNSC Iroquois and transmit data on the vessel's destination to the fleet, leading to Thel 'Vadamee discovering the location of the fortress world of Reach. Hesitant to commit his fleet to attacking such a heavily fortified world, Thel instead authorised the deployment of a half-handful of special forces insertion teams onto the planet. In extremely small numbers and employing stealth corvettes, a small number of Silent Shadow and a smaller number of Zealots of the Devoted Sentries were able to make landfall on the planet, managing to land their ships in an abandoned Titanium mine in the midst of the Viery undetected. While UNSC records were never able to ascertain the precise date and time this action occurred - a source of extreme investigation as to colonial aerospace security and threat detection later on - these teams are estimated to have made landfall by at least August 12.

For the next two weeks, the Silent Shadow units on-planet were able to successfully infiltrate and observe a number of UNSC facilities in the region, providing Supreme Commander 'Vadamee with extremely valuable intel as to the composition of Reach's defences and strategic targets. Later reports identified this extensive reconnaissance as key to the Covenant's brutal assault on the planet, as extensive modelling and assessment allowed 'Vadamee to take the UNSC off-guard and exploit several weaknesses with extensive pre-planning and foresight. Simultaneously, the battle of Gamma Leporis saw Rho 'Barutamee capture a vessel that had failed to enact the Cole Protocol, giving him the coordinates of what he believed to be a clue on the path to the fabled Maethrillian. Upon learning of 'Barutamee's plans to attack the Epsilon Eridani system - compromising the steady infiltration built up over the course of two weeks - Thel 'Vadamee saw an opportunity to use the Fleet of Valiant Prudence to augment his own forces in the Fleet of Particular Justice. While either fleet would be capable of taking on the gathered military forces at Reach, doing so would be extremely costly individually, but much safer a victory together. As such, the Fleets of Valiant Prudence and Particular Justice formed into a temporary alliance, the Combined Fleet of Righteous Immolation. While each commander had differing goals, both agreed that their chances of taking out the instrumentally important Reach would be better done together. As part of this deal, several of Rho's Devoted Sentries, led by Field Marshal Kishun Med 'Oranee joined the existing Silent Shadow on the ground, to ensure the continuation of the joint-cooperation.

By August 27, these Sangheili special forces units had managed to identify several key industrial facilities, orbital defence platform generator facilities, bases and other targets. Some of these facilities were later identified as ones that had reported enemy activity in the same timeframe, though the ongoing anti-rebel military activity in the region was assumed to be the cause of this with the Covenant not seriously entertained as a true threat. In the early hours of the morning on August 28, Army fireteams were deployed into Visegrad to investigate the Visegrad Relay, a vital communications hub believed to be attacked and under the control of the People's Occupation. Contact with these fireteams was lost later that day, prompting NOBLE Team to be deployed into the region to investigate the following day on August 29. NOBLE were quick to encounter Covenant forces, but ultimately able to take back control of Visegrad and confirm the presence of Covenant scouting parties on Reach.

Following confirmed contact with the Covenant in Visegrad, NOBLE were swiftly redeployed to SWORD Base to help fend off a similar intrusion attempt, wherein they fought off another unit of Silent Shadow and were debriefed by ONI personnel; the WINTER CONTINGENCY order had been suppressed before it could reach widespread knowledge, in the hopes that a reconnaissance mission could be done to assess the strength of Covenant presence on the planet before inducing a widespread military mobilisation and associated mass panic that would come with a WINTER CONTINGENCY declaration. The action at SWORD Base saw one of the Silent Shadow's personnel captured - albeit heavily injured - and interrogated by ONI personnel. While the naturally resistant Sangheili refused to part with any useful information before his death, a recovered datadisc was able to provide the ONI analysts with intelligence on the location of the Covenant's operating base on the planet.

The late hours of August 29 saw NOBLE deploy into the Viery Territory alongside Army Ranger units of SWG3 to conduct reconnaissance on what was believed to be the Silent Shadow's landing zone. The teams identified three small intrusion corvettes and a single SDV-class heavy corvette hidden under the cover of a stealth field pylon, prompting the teams to fall back while command determined what to do in response. While this mission saw little in the way of combat, the compromised nature of the attack on Sword Base and the intrusion into the titanium mine saw the Field Marshal commander of the scouting group alert Thel 'Vadamee of his compromised nature, resulting in the Combined fleet of Righteous Immolation jumping into slipspace to begin their assault on Reach.

August
At 0330 hours in the morning of August 30, NOBLE Team began a strike operation into the Covenant strike zone, leading an Army battalion under Special Warfare Group Three to take control of the region and capture the Covenant stealth craft, to allow ONI analysts to sieze the craft for data on additional Covenant force deployments. At 0447 hours, remote scanning outpost Fermion detected a large incoming mass of Covenant vessels, resulting in the message being relayed to FLEETCOM and WINTER CONTINGENCY being declared across the planet. At 0500, the Covenant Combined Fleet of Righteous Immolation, consisting of 315 vessels exited slipspace on the edge of the system. Minutes following, a number of attacks and explosions rocked several strategic facilities in the Viery region, thanks to planted Silent Shadow teams (and bombs delivered by them) - causing mass confusion and havoc across the planet.

By 0647 hours, the battle in space had devastated the Epsilon Eridani fleet, resulting in the UNSC Pillar of Autumn escaping the battle, pursued by a not-insignificant of the Fleet of Particular Justice under Thel's command. With the battle for Reach erupting in orbit, the strike engaged by NOBLE was rendered moot, particularly following the emergence of supercarrier Long Night of Solace over the Viery territory to reinforce the ongoing battle. Despite the ongoing engagements in orbit, Rho's overeager and overzealous nature saw him place his supercarrier in low Reach orbit - desperate to claim the Forerunner relics of the world below before the Fleet of Particular Justice could attempt to lay claim to them. This out-of-place positioning allowed an opportunity Special Warfare Group Three were quick to take advantage of, managing to convince Admiral Stanforth to "lend" a slipspace drive to the cause, initiating Operations: UPPER CUT and LEFT JAB, respectively, on August 31. The operation was a success, destroying the supercarrier whole and causing the carrier's back end to impact the surface of Reach in the mountains south of New Alexandria, while the front end impacted in the sea off the coast of the region. Remaining NOBLE elements not involved in the space operation - Nobles 1-4 - led a SWG3 force to the crash site to hunt down critical command personnel from the carrier before they could be reinforced. With Particular Justice's command element retreating and Valiant Prudence's commander dead, the remaining Covenant vessels in the Epsilon Eridani system were thrown into disarray, though Shipmaster Kantar 'Utaralee was able to eventually unit a significant fraction under his command to regroup near Turul. Nonetheless, this gave the final remaining UNSC aerospace forces at Reach a brief respite to reorganise and repair. While Reach was undoubtedly lost, the fight was still ongoing and it was still possible to evacuate the cities that hadn't been yet attacked.

By the end of August 30, the first waves of UNSC reinforcements began arriving from Epsilon Eridani's other planets to assist the already battered forces at Reach. Over the course of August 30 and 31, the remaining forces of the Combined Fleet of Righteous Immolation poured landing craft and insertion pods onto the planet, hesitant to indiscriminately glass for fear of damaging the numerous relics scattered across the world. New Alexandria, Manassas, Esztergom and Sopron - among others - became targets of brutal sieges by the Covenant, with Jiralhanae shock troops deployed into the warren-like metropolises of these cities to root out the humans while the Sangheili had the honour of beginning excavation efforts elsewhere.

September
As September 1 rolled around, the Covenant forces remaining in the Reach AO began to consolidate under Kantar 'Utaralee, beginning targeted strikes on remaining areas of UNSC resistance. The now Ministry of Fervent Intercession-led fleet elements refocused the attack on Reach with an emphasis on obtaining and taking control of the numerous Forerunner artifact sites scattered across the planet. While Zealot-led Sangheili forces were deployed to these prized relics, Jiralhanae shock troops were sent into the urban metropolis of Alexandria to root out humans by any means possible while the fleets were still engaged in combat in orbit. The Siege of New Alexandria saw human forces hold out against these troops for several days, thanks to particularly effective use of snipers to pick off Covenant infantry from above. Over the course of September 1-3, the New Alexandria Police Department coordinated with the UNSC (including NOBLE team) to evacuate over 100,000 civilians from the city, though these efforts ultimately culminated on the eve of September 4 as the city became a target of glassing by CCS-class battlecruisers. The evacuation of the ONI Olympic Tower saw Kat-B320 assassinated by a Devoted Sentry Field Marshal.

During these days, UNSC Naval battlegroups continuously poured into the Epsilon Eridani system from deployment in nearby star systems, only to find the planet they had been called to defend a cinder. These reinforcements were able to extend the fight in orbit past the initial August 30 date, taking advantage of the chaos in Covenant ranks caused by the departure of the Fleet of Particular Justice to make a stubborn holdout for nearly a week, though by September 5 all activities in the Reach Defense Coordination Zone had ceased. Nonetheless, these vital days of fighting were able to provide cover for countless civilian evacuation craft to escape and, provided the necessary cover for several covert operations across the planet to enact the Cole Protocol on a number of vital research facilities - collectively named Operation: WHITE GLOVE. One such operation saw NOBLE Team deploy to SWORD Base on September 5, where they were ultimately charged with scuttling the base, while teams ECHO, RED and GAUNTLET were deployed to similar such facilities.

During their mission, NOBLE Team were commissioned by SWORD Base's surviving AI construct Auntie Dot to take a data packet containing the collated data from the UNSC battlenet of the Covenant's activity on Reach alongside research conducted at SWORD and CASTLE (among other) facilities and deliver it to the UNSC's covert slipspace communications launcher, still intact due to its hidden, largely underground nature. The launcher would be used to deliver the data to Earth in order to both inform the UNSC of the progress of the battle and ensure the survival of the vital research at Reach.

Even following the official cessation of activities in the Reach AO by UNSC Naval forces, survivors on the ground continued to wage a lengthy ground campaign against the now-consolidated forces of the Covenant. With Covenant fleets in orbit victorious, forces organised under the Minor Prophet of Candor began a consolidated occupation of key critical Forerunner sites across the planet, deploying heavy equipment to begin excavation and reclamation of the relics. These occupation forces were continually harassed by human guerillas made up of a combination of UNSC personnel, local police departments and paramilitary forces and former insurrectionist troops coordinated by surviving UNSC commanders. One particularly notable group commanded by Vice Admiral Whitcomb operated within the Highland Mountains, forming a large militia operating within the pioneers' home territory. These forces holed up in abandoned former-Titanium mines across the territory, and were able to employ some of the numerous caches of weapons and equipment held by the regional insurrection, once intended to fight against their UNSC enemies. However, many other regions of the planet continued to host human survivor groups, who continued to ensure the Covenant occupation would not go undisturbed.

August 30

 * 0447 Hours: The remote scanning outpost Fermion detects a fleet of incoming Covenant vessels. An emergency message is relayed to FLEETCOM. The outpost then self-destructs per the Cole Protocol due to an unsecured science library and nearby Covenant forces.


 * 0500 Hours: The Covenant's Combined Fleet of Righteous Immolation, comprised of 315 vessels, exits slipspace on the edge of the Epsilon Eridani system.


 * 0517 Hours: Admiral Roland Freemont, FLEETCOM Sector One Commander, issues a general order to all vessels in the Epsilon Eridani system. All vessels and stations are to initiate the Cole Protocol and rush to Rally Point ZULU in high orbit above Reach. These orders are also relayed to all neighboring systems with a UNSC presence, but with the limited wavespace communications of the time, they take several hours to arrive.


 * 0534 Hours: Covenant vessels make pinpoint slipspace jumps attempting to destroy any incoming or outgoing human vessels before they can regroup. A Covenant carrier targets the UNSC Pillar of Autumn but is destroyed.


 * 0545 Hours: The Covenant vessels begin a frontal assault. As the Covenant and human fleets engage above Reach, it seems to be a stalemate, as Covenant ships take out UNSC ships, while the UNSC ships and MAC cannons take out an equal number. The first salvo by the UNSC vessels destroys a third of the remaining Covenant fleet. A Covenant supercruiser destroys several UNSC ships while outside human weapons range.


 * 0558 Hours: Station Gamma Dockmaster AI Doppler is unable to implement the Cole Protocol on the UNSC Circumference, an ONI prowler docked at Reach Station Gamma, due to measures taken to maintain the secrecy of Operation: HYPODERMIC. Doppler sends priority message to FLEETCOM concerning this violation. Covenant intrusion software detects this oversight, and the Covenant deploys troops to seize the NAV database aboard the Circumference.


 * 0616 Hours: The Spartan-IIs are dispatched from the Pillar of Autumn. John-117, Linda-058, and James-005 form Blue Team and go aboard the Dock to destroy the Circumference, while the remainder form Red Team and head to the surface of Reach to defend the power generators for the MAC guns. James goes MIA when a Needler hits his thruster pack and propels him into space during combat. Blue Team continue through the station, rescuing Staff Sergeant Johnson, Private O'Brien, Private Bisenti, and Pvt. Wallace A. Jenkins from Kig-yar and Sangheili.


 * 0620 Hours: Most of the Covenant fleet retreats from Reach's orbit after deploying more dropships toward the surface, focusing on FLEETCOM Heaquarters in the Highland Mountains. The UNSC fleet fires on the ships, destroying many although hundreds still land on Reach.


 * 0621 Hours: The boarding craft are landed and the FLEETCOM armory is overrun; the Covenant fleet re-enters Reach's orbital space. The Covenant split their 150+ remaining ships. One fleet attacks the UNSC ships, while another takes out the MAC cannons and send in troops to land on Reach. The UNSC try to split their 50+ remaining forces to engage the Covenant, but there are too many platforms to cover and too many casualties. The supercruiser continues to destroy UNSC ships, allowing the other ships to attack the MACs. Eventually, the supercruiser is destroyed by the Pillar of Autumn, but the UNSC fleet is practically decimated so it is too late to do any good.


 * 0631 Hours: Red Team's Pelican, Bravo 001, is shot down. They have no choice but to jump from the crashing Pelican and make a "hard landing" on the ground. This results in four Spartans dead and six seriously injured.


 * 0637 Hours: John-117, the clinically dead Linda-058, and the Marines board the Pillar of Autumn.


 * 0647 Hours: Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn orders the vessel to retreat from the system. Pursued by a dozen Covenant vessels — the surviving vessels of the Fleet of Particular Justice, under the command of Fleetmaster Thel 'Vadamee — the Autumn retreats from the system, heading for Installation 04.


 * 0649 Hours: Red Team sets up defenses around ODG Facility A-331.


 * 0711 Hours: Fred-104, Joshua-029, and Kelly-087 plant a nuclear warhead through the gravity lift in a Covenant cruiser holding position above Longhorn Valley, leaving Joshua-029 MIA, (presumed KIA) in the process.


 * 0720 Hours: The Covenant destroys ODG Facility A-331 by aerial bombardment, though some Spartans escape. The surviving MAC guns are now offline and are quickly destroyed by plasma torpedoes. Remaining UNSC vessels have no choice but to retreat. The Covenant warships are split into two groups: five-ship teams that hunt down the surviving UNSC vessels and a group of ships that align themselves in formation and begin to glass Reach.


 * With the bulk of the UNSC forces defeated, the Covenant proceeds to launch numerous artifact hunting or data-retrieval missions across the Reach. Executioner forces are deployed into population centers.


 * The Covenant splits off smaller elements of the Combined Fleet of Righteous Immolation to Tribute and Circumstance. By this point, remaining UNSC Naval forces in the system are utterly exhausted and scattered, allowing the invasions of Tribute and Circumstance to proceed with minimal opposition; while both are defended by relative handfuls of orbital defense platforms, these are soon destroyed. Over the coming days, smaller raiding groups, largely Jiralhanae-led, break off to the lesser colonies in the system, namely Beta Gabriel, Hadur, as well as outposts around the system's outer gas giants.

August 31

 * The Covenant intercepts the UNSC's defense groups incoming from the gas giants Tantalus and Jericho, still approaching Reach at full burn. The Tantalus group manages to loose high-velocity MAC volleys that destroy several Covenant ships but the Jericho one is less fortunate as the Covenant perform a slipspace jump behind them.

September 3

 * A squadron of reinforcements arrives in Epsilon Eridani from the Sirius system.

September 4

 * Lieutenant Wagner returns to Earth aboard a prowler and reports on the evident destruction of Reach to the UNSC Security Council (Colonel James Ackerson, Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood, and Major General Nicolas Strauss) at HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, Australia. Hood determines that the location of Earth is compromised and decides that all ONI theaters of operation must be relocated. The Security Council also begins planning for the final defense of Earth.

September 5

 * Reinforcements arrive in Epsilon Eridani from the Anu system.


 * Reinforcements arrive in Epsilon Eridani from the Asimov system.


 * The Combined Fleet of Righteous Purpose, personally led by Imperial Admiral Xytan Jar 'Wattinree, arrives to take over the Covenant operations in the Epsilon Eridani system. Remaining UNSC Naval forces are promptly destroyed or driven to retreat.


 * UNSC fleet actions in the Reach Defense Coordination Zone conclude.


 * All remaining naval forces are consolidated into a single command grouping: the UNSC Home Fleet.

September 7

 * 0002 Hours: The Spartan Red Team survivors and Dr. Halsey, after days of walking through the abandoned Titanium mines below CASTLE base, reach a vast subterranean Forerunner installation. Pursued by Covenant forces, Red Team and Dr. Halsey are subsequently stranded in a section of the Forerunner facility. Vinh-030 and Isaac-039 are presumed dead while covering the rest of the group's escape.

September 8

 * Reinforcements arrive in Epsilon Eridani from the 61 Ursae Majoris system and are promptly routed by the Covenant.

September 10

 * Reach's destruction is confirmed by prowler reconnaissance from Earth.

September 12

 * A battlegroup from the Eta Cassiopeiae system arrives in Epsilon Eridani and, finding the system's colonies devastated, promptly retreats to Earth in a series of Cole Protocol-compliant jumps.

September 7-24 (?)
Note: the date for these events cannot be definitively established at this time, as the temporal effects of the Forerunner crystal on the various parties that interacted with it remain under review.


 * The survivors of the Battle of Installation 04 arrive at Reach, having experienced a temporal anomaly caused by the Forerunner crystal under CASTLE base, supposedly sending them nearly two weeks into the past. They rejoin with the survivors at Menachite Mountain and escape to slipspace aboard the hybrid ship Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice with a Forerunner slipspace crystal from the ruins under Reach.

Production notes
The basic premise of the Fall of Reach in the Daybreak Continuum is that the version of events shown in The Fall of Reach and First Strike is, for better or worse, definitive. This does not, however, preclude expansion of those events, or new perspectives that weren't available to the characters in those novels (since they are limited to a small set of characters operating in a specific area of the planet). However, we still try to avoid trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, an example of which would be the assumption that the Covenant conveniently stayed on one side of the planet for weeks, and that battles were fought in orbit without most of the planet knowing. ONI may be good at their job, but not that good.

While version of the battle shown in The Fall of Reach may come off as anticlimatically abrupt in light of the longer battle presented in Reach, there are ways it can make a fair bit of sense. One of these is the notion of Covenant conducting robust forward reconnaissance with covert scouting parties, an idea introduced in Reach that Daybreak is actually keeping. By carefully gathering intel on the UNSC's defenses and strongholds on Reach, the Covenant managed to land the crippling decapitating strike shown in the novel. The largest divergence from what was implied in Nylund-era canon actually occurs after the initial attack on August 30. While largely smashed by the initial attack, UNSC forces retain a foothold on Reach and continue the fight against the Covenant for several days. This is also when most of the events of the game take place.

Elements incorporated from Halo: Reach into our version of the canon include:
 * Much of the worldbuilding and locations on Reach
 * Many of the visuals and designs, particularly on the UNSC side, e.g. the armor variants and the basic "mix-and-match" approach to armor customization, cross-branch and cross-system compatibility of armor pieces, as well as the notion of custom variants being largely built around add-ons on top of the armor as opposed to changing the core armor set itself.
 * Covenant scouting parties on Reach prior to the main invasion, as this only makes sense for such a major operation. However, these would have to be very small and low-key, to the point the UNSC would barely catch onto what's going on.
 * Noble Team makes an appearance, though the specifics of those characters may be tweaked (e.g. the atypical ages of characters, especially Carter). Similarly, the non-company Spartan-III backstory is slightly tweaked to preserve the thematic weight of Ghosts of Onyx.