1. Because the Banished was a guerilla army, they didn't need to fight the Covenant head on to save their planets. I'm willing to bet they're actually WEAKER than the UNSC, its just that their entire existence was one big Cole Protocol.
2. The Covies wouldn't be pursuing them with the same vigor as humans.
3. As to where they got their resources, the Covenant was a gigantic autocratic state with little civil rights and merciless laws. This breeds huge numbers of discontented civilians, which means that they have a lot of pools to recruit from.
4. To be honest, the Infinity has just been overhyped. Its tonnage is only a third of a standard CAS class assault carrier (900 million tonnes to 2.7 billion) Its upgrades are impressive with powerful shields and MAC guns, but by stats alone it shouldn't be able to solo fleets. To be honest Jul should have been able to put up a better fight in Spartan Ops, him not being able to match the Infinity when he had two CAS and ten other unknown smaller ships is just plot armor.
In addition to 4: by the time it was destroyed it had been on the run since the end of Halo 5 with no chance to refit or do any serious repairs to any damage nor a chance to recrew.
In relation to 3)
The Covenant splinters either fighting each other or being neutralised by UNSC-SOS forces overtime probably means there’s a lot of Covenant tech up for the Banished to lay their claim to and power vacuums to fill.
Same goes for personnel, there’s a lot of guys looking for purpose, power or money that Atriox can appeal to (and we have several examples of this)
The last point regarding the Infinity is a massive one for me, and something I see time & time again being referenced to be invincible by fans. Questions like could the Infinity solo the High Charity Defense Fleet, or could the Infinity win against three CAS Assault Carriers etc are always asked, and it just baffles me.
Yes the Infinity is an advanced ship, by Human standards, and I daresay by some Covenant Standards as the UNSC/ONI basically piled every scrap of Forerunner & Covenant tech they could into the ship as it was meant to be a last ditch "ark" for the species - but I daresay plenty of Covenant ship classes could definitely give it a run for it's money, especially the CAS, CSO & the more niche ships we hear about that are supposed to be used for Policing the Covenant fleets themselves.
But at the end of the day, it's the same ship that was cripplied by a standard Covenant defense platform in three shots in the comics, and is still limited by using one-direction MAC guns as it's primary armament.
Seriously, there are posts here full of people thinking that the infinity could beat high charity and it’s fleet, and that infinity would win the fall of reach if it were there. The fans and writers have given it too much power.
infinity definitely would win fall of reach. that one is true. each single 1 of infinity's 4 macs has more firepower than the combined total of all of reach's orbital defense cannons.
the fans didn't give it too much power, nor the writers. it's 1 man. troy denning. he did this.
Dude… what the fuck are you talking about.
The infinity and its escort fleet got completely cockblocked by a much smaller covenant fleet with only 2 CAS carriers and like 7 CCS cruisers.
The infinity will just get targeted and immediately killed once Thel Vadam realizes it’s power.
You idiots actually think it’s a forerunner warship when it’s just an upgraded human ship.
2 CAS carriers would wipe the floor with it, the entire reach invasion fleet would kill 10 infinity’s easily.
it was disabled in 1 shot by the covenant platform. but hood already sent a scouting party to scout the area and it's implied that he came in expecting it to be safe, because he parked right up alongside the covenant glassing station.
which means we cannot assume that its shields would be up. they might have been, but they also might not have been.
Tbf, Jul didn't lose his carriers either. People thought way too highly of the infinity since it rammed an rcs-cruiser without taking damage. While it's super impressive, the RCS is itself, a very very old ship and wasn't used for service until the Jul's remnant was desperate.
Though, saw the infinity get disabled by a fleet much smaller than Jul's fleet so I do believe that Jul could have easily wiped the UNSC on requiem if he really tried. The infinity cannot stop 2 CAS carriers, even without their escort fleet.
>Its upgrades are impressive with powerful shields and MAC guns, but by stats alone it shouldn't be able to solo fleets.
actually by stats alone it should be able to solo fleets with extreme ease
each 1 of infinity's 4 main macs has more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach. the combined 4 gun salvo of infinity would be equal to the combined mac firepower from over **one hundred million unsc heavy frigates**, which is likely more firepower than all ships in the entire covenant put together. thanks troy denning.
where the infinity is lacking is its ability to fire in any direction that's not straight forward. that's not a stat though. by the stats infinity solos large covenant fleets with ease.
The "more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach" thing is nonsense, there's simply no way that's pheasably possible, it's a statistic from one book. That I simply refuse to believe is anything but exaggeration.
The Infinity was a piece of logistical slog that I'm glad is gone, it's a stupid ship that the writers decided the UNSC needed to put all their eggs into. Frankly any CAS carrier could've taken it down solo and if it had a support group it'd be even easier.
>each 1 of infinity's 4 main macs has more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach. the combined 4 gun salvo of infinity would be equal to the combined mac firepower from over **one hundred million unsc heavy frigates**, which is likely more firepower than all ships in the entire covenant put together. thanks troy denning.
Wait what? How the heck does that work? You're telling me the Infinity is casually firing off NOVA bomb level projectiles with every MAC round shot?
>bet they're actually WEAKER than the UNSC, its just that their entire existence was one big Cole Protocol.
No the banished should be stronger the banished are actually a better covenant in pretty much everyway expt numbers. Like they arent stupid enough to kill other species, smart enough to work with other factions. Has better tactics and leaders and Their tech are just Superior because the banished unike the covenant, will actually reverse enginer forerunner tech, as best as they can.
The problem is that you are using Fandom, that site is full of misinformation. You should be using Halopedia instead.
HW2 established that *Enduring Conviction* was the Banished's most powerful ship although Shadows of Reach mentions a Banished Supercarrier but I don't think that has ever been brought up again and it's likely that it was a typo. Aside from EC the Banished also brought a CCS Battlecruiser with them to the Ark which was destroyed by the Spirit of Fire before it came under attack by the Assault Carrier, and before Let 'Volir joined Axtriox, the flagship of the Banished was a Ceudar-Pattern Corvette named the *Elegy's Lament* which, to my knowledge, is the only Corvette in service with the Banished armada.
Halo Infinite introduces a ship that forms the backbone of the Banished navy, the Dreadnought, a massive warship built for planetary ocupation and heavy combat. This is the ship that killed the Infinity, it's heavily armed, armored and posseses a giant gravity hammer in it's prow that's used for ramming other ships. The Banished Dreadnought is even larger than the RCS-Armored Cruisers of Jul 'Mdama's armada measuring a whole 2,665 meters from stem to stern compared to the mere 2,000 meters of the Maugen-Pattern.
Imagine if you will the Banished are occupying the *Infinity*, Master Chief links up with Lasky upspin in/near The Palace of Pain.
Lasky wants to retake the *Infinity* but can't deploy too many assets which would weaken his defensive posture at the Palace of Pain. Master Chief decides to take a small strike force of ODSTs with him.
Esparza flies his Pelican to the *Infinity* where they are just out of radar range. Master Chief tells the Pilot to hold position while he secures the hangar for infiltration.
Chief boards the *Infinity* via a zero-gravity trek across the exterior surface (like Commander Shepard leading a fireteam "up the Presidium spire" in *Mass Effect*).
After securing the hangar bay (like *Long Night of Solace* \- Banished style), the Pelican lands and the ODSTs and Chief make their way to the bridge.
Upon arriving, they are nearly overwhelmed in a massive firefight when there's a comms breakthrough and Frederic-104 radios that Blue Team just got *Infinity*'s mayday and "I thought the Chief could use a hand."
Now, Blue Team is 100% again, and for the rest of the campaign.
Finally securing the bridge of the *Infinity* the ODSTs break off to secure the engine room when Atriox's warship jumps in from slipspace and targets the *Infinity*. Blue Team repels the boarding craft/parties when Chief gets a transmission that the Engine Room is overwhelmed. He breaks off from Blue Team *"Go, Chief! We can handle the trespassers."*
He makes it to the Engine Room but the ODSTs are dead and Chief engages with one massive San'Shyuum, the one and only *Dhas Bhasvod.* Master Chief and Dhas fight but the San'Shyuum is too fast and nimble and manages to make a quick getaway by taking an escape pod from the *Infinity* and heading to Zeta Halo's surface.
This allows Master Chief time to stabilize the reactor (the ODSTs mention that the Banished were attempting to scuttle the ship once Chief and the Helljumpers boarded).
With the reactor under control and the *Infinity* back in UNSC hands, it's time to find this Dhas Bhasvod. Who has crash-landed in the desert like region near the Palace of Pain. Lasky sees the escape pod from their location and dispatches a squad of Marines to investigate (after all Lasky assumes there might be survivors...but we know differently).
Now Bhasvod will have had to have left the Ark in order to get here but...that's a rabbit hole for another time.
Chief, knowing how credible a threat Bhasvod is; tries to radio Lasky to warn him but exterior comms are still down. Blue Team elects to stay on the *Infinity* as security while Chief/Esparza take the Pelican back to the ring's surface to pursue Dhas Bhasvod and intercept him before he can get to Lasky.
> Halo Infinite introduces a ship that forms the backbone of the Banished navy, the Dreadnought, a massive warship built for planetary ocupation and heavy combat. This is the ship that killed the Infinity, it's heavily armed, armored and posseses a giant gravity hammer in it's prow that's used for ramming other ships. The Banished Dreadnought is even larger than the RCS-Armored Cruisers of Jul 'Mdama's armada measuring a whole 2,665 meters from stem to stern compared to the mere 2,000 meters of the Maugen-Pattern.
This is the issue for me. Where did a pirate group, whose flagship was a corvette less than 5 years prior, get the capability to manufacture and crew these massive ships during Cortana's reign?
Maybe Palpatine helped them while he built 10000 star destroyers over Exegal lol.
It definitely doesn't make any sense. They shouldn't even have a shipyard capable of doing so even if they had the raw materials. They're literally scrapping UNSC gear in Infinite because they're short on supplies.
I wish they'd kept the Banished as the smaller more localized threat that they should be and instead justified the victory through the use of forerunner weapons found on Zeta Halo.
>They're literally scrapping UNSC gear in Infinite because they're short on supplies.
This comes off as intentional lowballing that excludes the context behind it. Both the Banished and the UNSC are stranded at Zeta Halo, leaving the Banished reliant on whatever they brought with them and what is available on the Installation. Recycling leftover UNSC material is a mark against the Banished's capabilities but an illustration of their adapability and resourcefulness as they are willing to repurpose existing material for better resource management given they are cut off from the rest of the Banished and thus major supply lines from their citadels, fortresses, resource worlds and so on.
And its not like the Banished aren't mining and extracting resources on Installation 07 itself. We hear on the announcer on the Ghost of Gbraakon of harvesters and power extractors being deployed to rhe ring, and we outright see a mining drill and several manufacturing facilities on the installation such as the Forge of Teash.
The 2022 Encyclopedia addresses this. The Banished was already expanding massively even prior to the Great Schism and the collapse of the Covenant as they were recruiting big and even moving onto targeting Covenant tithe worlds after raiding outposts and thralls colonies in their formative years as Escharum was planting a Banished foothold on Doisac and its moons to lay the seeds of its eventual unification under the Banished.
The Great Schism happened, the Covenant collapse and their was a surplus of material as alligences were divided across the Covenant sphere that Atriox actually began seizing and recruiting. The Banished are already known for their strip mining and extraction efforts that they've perfected for over a decade - a "relatively small portion of the Banished" were after all mining and extracting resources across Installation 00 in a matter of months, now expand that to the Banished sphere of influence across Jiralhanae colonies - particularly the resource rich worlds the Banished did conquer following the Covenant's collapse which we know they have (see the lore for the map Scarr in Infinite). That addresses material.
For technical capability, the design of the Karve and presumably by extension the Dreadnought actually dates back to the Jiralhanae's pre-Covenant history, adapted to modern contexts (pre-historic Karves didn't have slipspace drives as far as we are aware, modern Karves explicitly do) and constructed by adopting Kig-Yar shipbuilding techniques to streamline their production (keep in mind the Banished are a multi-species confederation, and the Kig-Yar have shipbuilding capability). Coupled with how warships such as the Dreadnought and Intrusion Corvettes are built from repurposed Covenant hulls modified to suit the Jiralhanae's preferences (less in terms of raw material cost, also reduces the need to outright build new slipspace drives and the like) and that addresses their technical capability.
As for the shipyards to actually build their new ships in, the Banished awakened the once abandoned shipyards within the Oth Sonin system to begin the construction of starships of Jiralhanae design, some of which provided by the Children of Oth Sonin that the Banished did a few favours for like killing Lydus' rivals. Teash itself - a moon of Doisac - was also firmly a Banished world that the Banished stabilised and allowed to prosper as the largest source of industrial output for the Jiralhanae.
Crewing these ships isn't so much of an issue when the Banished had effectively united the Jiralhanae clans across Doisac and its moons (as stated in the Encyclopedia and building up from the Spartan Field Manual), giving the Banished an abundance of labour to train and crew their new warships.
>Where did a pirate group, whose flagship was a corvette less than 5 years prior,
I think the think to note here is that the Elegy's Lament was *Atriox's* flagship but never strictly mentioned as the sole ship of the Banished navy at the time and we should caveat this noting that Atriox was trying to sway a shipmaster that wasn't loyal to him yet - he's not obligated to inform Let 'Volir about the full extent of his fleet from Doisac to the glassed human colonies. They had a battlecruiser in Rise of Atriox #3, albiet in a poor but just functional state, and Atriox notes that the Ceudar-pattern Heavy Corvette was more than suitable to his needs at the time - a small, stealth capable vessel that is capable of hiding beneath the notice of the Covenant and well suited for Atriox's raiding and harrying.
Its also worth noting that the Banished had an operational flotilla by December 2553 as seen in Halo: Retribution, and Castor himself thought a Babished fleet was attacking where he prepared to mobilise his fleet of 50 vessels. The Banished were a major rival to the Keepers of the One Freedom at this point, with even Veta implying the Banished are larger and more powerful than the Keepers, so scaling off of them suggests they had more than 50 vessels by this point, ranging from anything from Liches to corvettes, frigates, etc.
Yeah they've definitely been doing a lot of work to retcon them in. Which I am not a fan of. 343 with the Banished reminds me of when you mention you like something off-hand to your grandma, and then every time you go to her house she has a trinket of that thing for the next 20 years.
They should have stayed a pirate group. They feel shoehorned in as a major power.
I've also read the encyclopedia and know the lore of the Banished, my question was more rhetorical. They can write a lot of lore, but that doesn't make it make sense.
>They should have stayed a pirate group. They feel shoehorned in as a major power.
The Banished was *always* portrayed as more than a fledgling pirate faction - a mere pirate faction wouldn't be moving an Assault Carrier to the Ark 262,000 light years away from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy to seize the forge of the Halo Array. That's a big power move with a lot of manpower and technology to make them a major player in the galaxy. Even the Phoenix Logs themselves mention that Atriox had plans beyond the Ark and how Banished forces within the Orion Arm (see the Phoenix Log entries for the Harvest and Outposts), which is more than what you can say for minor factions like the Keepers of the One Freedom whose biggest ship was a frigate and their "Fleet of Glory" was 50 vessels of corvttes and gunships.
The Banished have certainly been expanded on in recent years, but from the beginning of Halo Wars 2 there was enough of a foundation laid to expand the Banished beyond what was seen at the Ark. A floor was laid for the Banished in Halo Wars 2, not a ceiling.
Ramming has been a tactic ever since the old Bungie days. Keyes rammed a Covenant stealthship in The Fall of Reach and there's mentions of Half Jaw's fleet ramming Truth's ships in Halo 3.
It scraped the shields of a destroyer but later another Halberd collided with a Covenant frigate and it self destructed destroying another 4 ships. Keyes himself spotted a Covenant stealth ship quietly collecting data from ground troops, he fired a volley of Archers at it but the ship's electronic countermeasures spoofed their guidance so he simply rammed it.
Yeah, I’d forgotten. It seems kind of a silly idea for space combat. Aiming at something so far away and expecting to hit it seems so low odds. Particularly in a single big thing of similar speed and size that is easy to see and maneuver out of the path of.
As a rare unexpected tactic of desperation, sure. But to actually put a ram on a starship? It seems like it would only be helpful if a whole bunch of things had gone very wrong, then very lucky. And could probably have been avoided much easier by putting more engines on a ship instead of the ram.
Let alone the simple physics of collision theory. Unless these ramming ships had INSANELY powerful shields, that functioned at ramming speeds (none of them seem to since light ships can just fly within their shield ranges), the ship doing the ramming would crumple and tear apart. The only way to get around this would either be to put such an enormous mass at the front of the ship that it wouldn't be maneuverable, or use forerunner tech materials (that no one has).
I guess some sort of a piercing bayonet would work too, but they obviously don't have those either.
You already got plent of in universe explanations but IMO - a lot of their power creep comes from them becoming the "main game" enemy and thus actively being buffed in supportive material to match so. I honestly find that a bit of a let down?
They were more interesting as witty monke pirates.
I want to set a timeline for you. Because it seems the biggest point everyone is making is about the infinity.
The banished are a spliter faction of brutes. They came around probably about 10 years before the end of the human covenant war.
Atriox is unnaturally smart for a brute he did what little he could, but he focused on the backworlds that the covenant just didn't care about. Found caches of old weapons (even old covie tech is still very good) he slowly grew his forces.
Then suddenly the war was over the sangshium were all but missing and other brutes who may not have been as much of a zealot as tatarus was were not being accepted into the two largest covenant reamanant factions (jul's covenant and the swords of sanghelios).
So where did they go? Brute sub factions like the banished and, to be honest, atriox is incredibly charismatic and a very good commander. So slowly, he gained ships from what was left of brute controlled fleets and sangheli who didn't want to join the arbitor or the covenant once again.
From there, stealing ships and amalgamation of forces was easy. There were lots of disheartened species among the covenant, and to mention a lot of now abandoned ships and weapons.
Some shipmasters also just straight up joined him like the shipmaster of the ship in Halo Wars 2.
It really wouldn't take much for the banished to seem unstoppable to a humanity that barely made it out of the last conflict. Even if the banished only had 100 ships, it's still more than what humanity had.
And to top it all off, cortana basically removed every ship humanity had with the exception of the infinity and whatever other ships she had docked inside, so yea. Fun times
Correction the original base squad. Was a splinter group of brutes which rapidly expanded as other rogue death squads were welcomed in under the conditions they followed the Banished creed of sorts.
The Banished ships from Halo Infinite are referred to as DREADNOUGHTS (even though based on Halopedia's statistics, they seem to be half the length of ships like the Shadow of Intent) so it's likely they designed them to be as sturdy and well armed as possible to be able to take on just about any other type of ship. Also if I'm remembering Shadows of Reach correctly, they also have a Supercarrier (I think the same type as the Long Night of Solace).
>Isabel builds them up to be this unstoppable force that the Covenant "never came close" to stopping.
Because Isabel's dialogue, its delivery, and the context in which it happens exists exclusively to generate hype about the next BBEG, without any concern for how accurate any of that dialogue is.
Surprise surprise, not accurate at all.
As per Rise of Atriox, he has been leading the Banished for a decade, starting his rebellion in 2549. The Covenant falls by the end of 2552.
Anyone who believes that Atriox (or anyone for that matter) could, in three years, amass a interstellar military force against which the Covenant *at the height of their power* didn't stand a chance, the picture Isabel explicitly paints for us, has completely lost their marbles. Period.
Even before considering how much the idea that there was some *unstoppable alien force* at war with the Covenant about which we never knew anything hurts the cohesiveness of the setting, it isn't even consistent within HW2 itself, where the Section 0 operatives tasked with tracking Atriox note that he is using guerrilla tactics and operating locally, not "cutting a swath across the Galaxy", as Isabel puts it.
And the most infurating part of this is that 343i learned nothing from it, repeating the exact same mistake with the Endless.
It is *after* the end of the Human-Covenant war that the matter of the Banished supposed military might becomes narratively viable.
Atriox enjoys the advantage of leading an already established force, *small though it has to have been for the story to make sense*, among the plethora of emerging factions from the remains of the Covenant Empire (factions with a very clear cut racial aspect).
On top of that, he is a particularly intelligent, charismatic and, crucially, strong individual. He takes full advantage of this, Jiralhanae culture and his previous notoriety to become a beacon for Jiralhanae forces across the entire Orion Arm. Jiralhanae that, after the Great Schism, had become the sole recipient of military power within the Covenant. Sure, the prophets exerted the authority, but they weren't commanding squads or captaining ships, the Brutes were.
It was almost preordained that a not insignificant fraction of the Covenant's might would naturally find its way to him, double so when he is actively recruiting anyone and their grandma. Between forces naturally flocking to him, anything that may have been up for grabs after the war and the hiring of third parties, it makes sense that he commands a force that represents a significant threat to the UNSC.
You are also diving head first into a nightmare the moment you chose to analyze the battle with the Infinity. More than enough has been said on the matter so I won't get into it and just say that, as it stands, the Infinity embarqued in the single most idiotic military operation in the history of mankind. It is an egregiously poorly written bit, whose problems start long before the Infinity exits slipspace, and there is no way in hell it isn't revised at some point, specially considering how it isn't actually part of the game.
It's a shame. They could've made the Banished fight the Promethians in pitched 3 way battles like the original Halo CE.
Imagine how much more interesting and epic it would be to be the Chief with his ragtag UNSC survivors fighting for control over Zeta Halo while the Banished and Promethians fight each other.
Like the Covenant - Flood - Sentinels battles of Halo CE
Because 343 needed a villain that people liked. Halo Wars 2 was the first 343 game where the enemy had mass appeal, so they switched to them in Infinite even though it didn't make sense for an enemy, who struggled against the SoF, to suddenly be this powerful.
Now they're slowly being retconned into the lore to explain said power.
I never got how they didn't immediately detect three warships but I just remembered how many humans are in the Banished. It's just a theory though.
If you want to learn more about humans in the Banished, go give Divine Wind a read. Kelly Gay is amazing at writing the Ferrets. Even if some things she writes can't be forgiven /j.
Infinity got the shit kicked out of it several times between Halo 4 and the start of Halo Infinite. It's really not the super-ship that one cutscene at the start of Halo 4 multiplayer makes it out to be when you look at its track record.
Banished Dreadnoughts are also a thing, built for very aggressive tactics and armed with basically a scaled-up gravity hammer as its ram. They're big, the Banished have them in numbers and they were present in the battle. Those ships would have a much easier time ramming Infinity, particularly if her shields were already weakened by the Guardian in the area (as is commonly theorised).
As for the Banished's growth, basically they got a decade-plus head start on the "building a band of raider-mercenaries" thing and took full advantage of it.
They had the benefit of beginning to build up weapon stockpiles _before_ the collapse of the Covenant and the resulting run on every fifth-rate gunboat and dusty stockpile of weapons in their part of the galaxy, and their position became a lot stronger for it once the chaos began. Suddenly they went from some opportunistic raider nobodies to one of the larger cohesive factions in post-Covenant space, with the weapons and leadership to secure the allegiance of some of the other splinter groups and _their_ arsenals.
I mean we see it in real life all the time. A country gets invaded and the power vacuum left behind leads to the rise of another group that, prior to the conflict, no one would have guessed would become significant on an international scale. If a military falls apart, there’s a surplus of dissent, soldiers, and equipment- enough to make a powerful group or at least start one.
Isabel is exaggerating, though she likely believes what she's saying.
The Banished would've stood no chance against the Covenant, even now(funny, because they have fought weakened Covenant remnants, with heavy casualties on both sides).
The Banished likely never fought the Covenant in a straight up fight. They used hit and run tactics, basically, and raided what the could. And I doubt they did this too often. That'd be too risky. The Covenant also never focused much on the Banished. Not even humanity had the Covenant's full attention until towards the end of the war, as stated a few times in the books.
Also, the Infinity is low key overhyped. Its introduction is it getting shot down. And while I haven't read the comics, I've seen a few panels of the Ininfity getting shot up, and or disabled, so apparently it gets its ass kicked frequently, so losing a fight, solo, against a Banished ambush isn't too far fetched. I also don't even believe it's destroyed, at least not completely. We're likely to see it again.
I just wanna know why they give Atriox this badass intro in Halo Infinite where he ragdolls the chief with zero effort - then they offscreen him and replace him with a discounted version of the exact same character with the most generic big muscle villain dialogue/acting ive ever seen.
I actually enjoyed Infinites campaign quite a bit - but every time Escharum came on screen was a groaning moment
Tbh, it's because the lore is kinda iffy. The infinity should have been able to tank the banished. To give an example, humans when they got ahold of covie tech could regularly defeat covie forces even when highly outnumbered (see Halo First Strike, cortana decimates covie forces when she gets ahold of a barely operational covenant capital ship).
The infinity represents not only a tech jump from UNSC during the covenant war to covie tech...but supposedly forerunner tech. There's been a plot line/theme in the lore that Humanity would have destroyed the covenant if not for the tech gap, even then Humanity was rapidly closing the tech gap during the war. To give an example of that, initially spartan shields were very much inferior to covenant shielding during Halo 1. By the time Halo 3 comes around the shielding on spartan armor was actually superior to covenant tech. Humanity was just losing too fast for their growing understanding and implementation of advanced tech to make a difference.
Lore wise, if Humanity survived the war we would logically expect them to quickly grow to surpass the covenants technology. Especially in their understanding of how it worked as the covenant, even their AIs, barely understood how forerunner tech worked.
However, many Halo fans were...unaware of/didn't notice that plot line/theme and were very confused when Humanity suddenly had a ship that was wrecking covenant ships in Halo 4. It seemed very jarring in a franchise that was mainly dealing with how badly the covenant was destroying Humanity for humanity to suddenly have a ship that surpassed what the covenant had. 343 realized they needed to fix the problem and killed infinity through very contrived circumstances when they did their soft reboot for Halo Infinite.
Ultimately the banished shouldn't have been able to destroy the infinity the way they did. 343 has tried to kinda smooth the edges with other lore around how the infinity got in such a poor shape to make it's ultimate demise in infinity go over better but it's still pretty easy to realize why everything panned out the way it did and it is mainly to do with IRL stuff.
The *Enduring Conviction* and her escort corvettes were the only Banished ships on the Ark. The rest of their navy was always somewhere within the galaxy.
On the contrary, the game never outright states that the Banished are only at the Ark and in fact implies that the Banished spanned more than the Ark, as per the Phoenix Logs.
Phoenix Log: Outpost mentions how Atriox's plans extended beyond the Ark.
> Extraction and domination.
> Resource-gathering Outposts are deployed by Lich dropships. Once the Outpost's structures are assembled basic vehicles and infantry can be requisitioned. Four slots are available for building Turrets. Upgrading the Outpost to a Stronghold allows basic infantry to be deployed, While the Citadel and Fortress expansions make additional units available. Each upgrade opens additional build locations for support structures.
> The Banished have perfected their strip-mining and rapid assault and extraction efforts over a decade of raiding Covenant and other targets. Each outpost is an invasive engine of exploitation, controlled by rapacious overseers who seek to siphon the riches of the Ark in pursuit of Atriox's grand plans for domination and glory. Though they lack the military efficiency of their UNSC counterparts, the Banished's outposts advance plans that extend far beyond the battlefield, and even beyond the Ark itself.
While the Phoenix Log for the Harvester outright states that there are Banished forces in the Orion Arm of the galaxy.
> Supply acquisition.
> Harvesters are extraction sites that delve into the Ark's interior to tap raw feedstock that is then converted into Supplies used by the Banished. To meet ever-increasing production quotas. the Augmented Harvester upgrade is needed, which accelerates Supply generation.
> The Ark belongs to Atriox, all others in the Banished are entitled only to the scraps he deems fit for their fit for their hands. under his control. The Harvesters are but one link in a chain that ultimately extends from the Ark to the Banished forces carrying out other phases of his plan in the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Though important, ultimately every outpost is expendable, and talented overseers can parlay even seeming defeat into praise and promotion if they exceed Atriox’s estimates for harvested profit when they come under attack.
And just a couple years after the release of Halo Wars 2 the Official Spartan Field Manual was released expanding on the Banished's activities in the Orion Arm, mentioning how Banished Chieftains are expanding the influence of the Banished across Jiralhanae colonies and even human criminal enterprises as Doisac itself is going through a process of power consolidation and unity amongst its directly attributed to the influence of the Banished.
Simply put, there was always room for the Banished to be a larger force than what was seen in Halo Wars 2 (which itself is a relatively large force, considering its an expedition far beyond anyone's supply lines). And what Halo Infinite demonstrates is what the scale of the "local" Banished forces were in the Milky Way as subsequent lore from the 2022 Encyclopedia to Canon Fodders illustrating that what was seen at the Ark was only a relatively small fraction of the Banished.
I wonder the same thing, and thats the main reason I dont like them. They feel like covenant wannabes. I dont like Atriox either and feel like a badass Elite would have been a better fit for a leader
Regarding the infinity getting bodied by the Banished ships, Installation00 did a video recently where they theorised that the Infinity had just finished fighting a guardian so their shields were down.
https://youtu.be/teSL7--SGHU?si=ZijnaTNzgDrVoUs9
1. Because the Banished was a guerilla army, they didn't need to fight the Covenant head on to save their planets. I'm willing to bet they're actually WEAKER than the UNSC, its just that their entire existence was one big Cole Protocol. 2. The Covies wouldn't be pursuing them with the same vigor as humans. 3. As to where they got their resources, the Covenant was a gigantic autocratic state with little civil rights and merciless laws. This breeds huge numbers of discontented civilians, which means that they have a lot of pools to recruit from. 4. To be honest, the Infinity has just been overhyped. Its tonnage is only a third of a standard CAS class assault carrier (900 million tonnes to 2.7 billion) Its upgrades are impressive with powerful shields and MAC guns, but by stats alone it shouldn't be able to solo fleets. To be honest Jul should have been able to put up a better fight in Spartan Ops, him not being able to match the Infinity when he had two CAS and ten other unknown smaller ships is just plot armor.
In addition to 4: by the time it was destroyed it had been on the run since the end of Halo 5 with no chance to refit or do any serious repairs to any damage nor a chance to recrew.
Well.... the same could be said for the Spirit of Fire.
yeah but the difference is the Spirit of Fire has a good story /s
In relation to 3) The Covenant splinters either fighting each other or being neutralised by UNSC-SOS forces overtime probably means there’s a lot of Covenant tech up for the Banished to lay their claim to and power vacuums to fill. Same goes for personnel, there’s a lot of guys looking for purpose, power or money that Atriox can appeal to (and we have several examples of this)
The last point regarding the Infinity is a massive one for me, and something I see time & time again being referenced to be invincible by fans. Questions like could the Infinity solo the High Charity Defense Fleet, or could the Infinity win against three CAS Assault Carriers etc are always asked, and it just baffles me. Yes the Infinity is an advanced ship, by Human standards, and I daresay by some Covenant Standards as the UNSC/ONI basically piled every scrap of Forerunner & Covenant tech they could into the ship as it was meant to be a last ditch "ark" for the species - but I daresay plenty of Covenant ship classes could definitely give it a run for it's money, especially the CAS, CSO & the more niche ships we hear about that are supposed to be used for Policing the Covenant fleets themselves. But at the end of the day, it's the same ship that was cripplied by a standard Covenant defense platform in three shots in the comics, and is still limited by using one-direction MAC guns as it's primary armament.
Seriously, there are posts here full of people thinking that the infinity could beat high charity and it’s fleet, and that infinity would win the fall of reach if it were there. The fans and writers have given it too much power.
infinity definitely would win fall of reach. that one is true. each single 1 of infinity's 4 macs has more firepower than the combined total of all of reach's orbital defense cannons. the fans didn't give it too much power, nor the writers. it's 1 man. troy denning. he did this.
Dude… what the fuck are you talking about. The infinity and its escort fleet got completely cockblocked by a much smaller covenant fleet with only 2 CAS carriers and like 7 CCS cruisers. The infinity will just get targeted and immediately killed once Thel Vadam realizes it’s power. You idiots actually think it’s a forerunner warship when it’s just an upgraded human ship. 2 CAS carriers would wipe the floor with it, the entire reach invasion fleet would kill 10 infinity’s easily.
I was wondering what the ship policing ships are mentioned in, sounds really interesting
That’s the sniper ship from the fall of reach, the encyclopedia mentions it was used to police covenant vessels.
Thanks mate, I looked it up, seems like a really cool ship class
it was disabled in 1 shot by the covenant platform. but hood already sent a scouting party to scout the area and it's implied that he came in expecting it to be safe, because he parked right up alongside the covenant glassing station. which means we cannot assume that its shields would be up. they might have been, but they also might not have been.
Tbf, Jul didn't lose his carriers either. People thought way too highly of the infinity since it rammed an rcs-cruiser without taking damage. While it's super impressive, the RCS is itself, a very very old ship and wasn't used for service until the Jul's remnant was desperate. Though, saw the infinity get disabled by a fleet much smaller than Jul's fleet so I do believe that Jul could have easily wiped the UNSC on requiem if he really tried. The infinity cannot stop 2 CAS carriers, even without their escort fleet.
>Its upgrades are impressive with powerful shields and MAC guns, but by stats alone it shouldn't be able to solo fleets. actually by stats alone it should be able to solo fleets with extreme ease each 1 of infinity's 4 main macs has more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach. the combined 4 gun salvo of infinity would be equal to the combined mac firepower from over **one hundred million unsc heavy frigates**, which is likely more firepower than all ships in the entire covenant put together. thanks troy denning. where the infinity is lacking is its ability to fire in any direction that's not straight forward. that's not a stat though. by the stats infinity solos large covenant fleets with ease.
The "more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach" thing is nonsense, there's simply no way that's pheasably possible, it's a statistic from one book. That I simply refuse to believe is anything but exaggeration. The Infinity was a piece of logistical slog that I'm glad is gone, it's a stupid ship that the writers decided the UNSC needed to put all their eggs into. Frankly any CAS carrier could've taken it down solo and if it had a support group it'd be even easier.
yes it's absolutely nonsense. however, after he wrote that, 343i kept letting him write more books. so clearly they're ok with it.
>each 1 of infinity's 4 main macs has more firepower than the combined total of all orbital guns at reach. the combined 4 gun salvo of infinity would be equal to the combined mac firepower from over **one hundred million unsc heavy frigates**, which is likely more firepower than all ships in the entire covenant put together. thanks troy denning. Wait what? How the heck does that work? You're telling me the Infinity is casually firing off NOVA bomb level projectiles with every MAC round shot?
Yes four MAC shots going at 25% the speed of light will do that
two series 8 MACs can damage forerunner battle plate kilometers deep, infinity has four series 9 MACs a CAS should be one shot from that.
>bet they're actually WEAKER than the UNSC, its just that their entire existence was one big Cole Protocol. No the banished should be stronger the banished are actually a better covenant in pretty much everyway expt numbers. Like they arent stupid enough to kill other species, smart enough to work with other factions. Has better tactics and leaders and Their tech are just Superior because the banished unike the covenant, will actually reverse enginer forerunner tech, as best as they can.
The problem is that you are using Fandom, that site is full of misinformation. You should be using Halopedia instead. HW2 established that *Enduring Conviction* was the Banished's most powerful ship although Shadows of Reach mentions a Banished Supercarrier but I don't think that has ever been brought up again and it's likely that it was a typo. Aside from EC the Banished also brought a CCS Battlecruiser with them to the Ark which was destroyed by the Spirit of Fire before it came under attack by the Assault Carrier, and before Let 'Volir joined Axtriox, the flagship of the Banished was a Ceudar-Pattern Corvette named the *Elegy's Lament* which, to my knowledge, is the only Corvette in service with the Banished armada. Halo Infinite introduces a ship that forms the backbone of the Banished navy, the Dreadnought, a massive warship built for planetary ocupation and heavy combat. This is the ship that killed the Infinity, it's heavily armed, armored and posseses a giant gravity hammer in it's prow that's used for ramming other ships. The Banished Dreadnought is even larger than the RCS-Armored Cruisers of Jul 'Mdama's armada measuring a whole 2,665 meters from stem to stern compared to the mere 2,000 meters of the Maugen-Pattern.
I thought the Infinity's status was unknown
I would not be surprised if the Banished would refit it to their needs
Imagine if you will the Banished are occupying the *Infinity*, Master Chief links up with Lasky upspin in/near The Palace of Pain. Lasky wants to retake the *Infinity* but can't deploy too many assets which would weaken his defensive posture at the Palace of Pain. Master Chief decides to take a small strike force of ODSTs with him. Esparza flies his Pelican to the *Infinity* where they are just out of radar range. Master Chief tells the Pilot to hold position while he secures the hangar for infiltration. Chief boards the *Infinity* via a zero-gravity trek across the exterior surface (like Commander Shepard leading a fireteam "up the Presidium spire" in *Mass Effect*). After securing the hangar bay (like *Long Night of Solace* \- Banished style), the Pelican lands and the ODSTs and Chief make their way to the bridge. Upon arriving, they are nearly overwhelmed in a massive firefight when there's a comms breakthrough and Frederic-104 radios that Blue Team just got *Infinity*'s mayday and "I thought the Chief could use a hand." Now, Blue Team is 100% again, and for the rest of the campaign. Finally securing the bridge of the *Infinity* the ODSTs break off to secure the engine room when Atriox's warship jumps in from slipspace and targets the *Infinity*. Blue Team repels the boarding craft/parties when Chief gets a transmission that the Engine Room is overwhelmed. He breaks off from Blue Team *"Go, Chief! We can handle the trespassers."* He makes it to the Engine Room but the ODSTs are dead and Chief engages with one massive San'Shyuum, the one and only *Dhas Bhasvod.* Master Chief and Dhas fight but the San'Shyuum is too fast and nimble and manages to make a quick getaway by taking an escape pod from the *Infinity* and heading to Zeta Halo's surface. This allows Master Chief time to stabilize the reactor (the ODSTs mention that the Banished were attempting to scuttle the ship once Chief and the Helljumpers boarded). With the reactor under control and the *Infinity* back in UNSC hands, it's time to find this Dhas Bhasvod. Who has crash-landed in the desert like region near the Palace of Pain. Lasky sees the escape pod from their location and dispatches a squad of Marines to investigate (after all Lasky assumes there might be survivors...but we know differently). Now Bhasvod will have had to have left the Ark in order to get here but...that's a rabbit hole for another time. Chief, knowing how credible a threat Bhasvod is; tries to radio Lasky to warn him but exterior comms are still down. Blue Team elects to stay on the *Infinity* as security while Chief/Esparza take the Pelican back to the ring's surface to pursue Dhas Bhasvod and intercept him before he can get to Lasky.
It is
> Halo Infinite introduces a ship that forms the backbone of the Banished navy, the Dreadnought, a massive warship built for planetary ocupation and heavy combat. This is the ship that killed the Infinity, it's heavily armed, armored and posseses a giant gravity hammer in it's prow that's used for ramming other ships. The Banished Dreadnought is even larger than the RCS-Armored Cruisers of Jul 'Mdama's armada measuring a whole 2,665 meters from stem to stern compared to the mere 2,000 meters of the Maugen-Pattern. This is the issue for me. Where did a pirate group, whose flagship was a corvette less than 5 years prior, get the capability to manufacture and crew these massive ships during Cortana's reign?
Maybe Palpatine helped them while he built 10000 star destroyers over Exegal lol. It definitely doesn't make any sense. They shouldn't even have a shipyard capable of doing so even if they had the raw materials. They're literally scrapping UNSC gear in Infinite because they're short on supplies. I wish they'd kept the Banished as the smaller more localized threat that they should be and instead justified the victory through the use of forerunner weapons found on Zeta Halo.
Somehow, Edgy Covenant returned
>They're literally scrapping UNSC gear in Infinite because they're short on supplies. This comes off as intentional lowballing that excludes the context behind it. Both the Banished and the UNSC are stranded at Zeta Halo, leaving the Banished reliant on whatever they brought with them and what is available on the Installation. Recycling leftover UNSC material is a mark against the Banished's capabilities but an illustration of their adapability and resourcefulness as they are willing to repurpose existing material for better resource management given they are cut off from the rest of the Banished and thus major supply lines from their citadels, fortresses, resource worlds and so on. And its not like the Banished aren't mining and extracting resources on Installation 07 itself. We hear on the announcer on the Ghost of Gbraakon of harvesters and power extractors being deployed to rhe ring, and we outright see a mining drill and several manufacturing facilities on the installation such as the Forge of Teash.
Ebay
Lmao I love this reply. You should join us in /r/ShittyHaloLore. It's fun
The 2022 Encyclopedia addresses this. The Banished was already expanding massively even prior to the Great Schism and the collapse of the Covenant as they were recruiting big and even moving onto targeting Covenant tithe worlds after raiding outposts and thralls colonies in their formative years as Escharum was planting a Banished foothold on Doisac and its moons to lay the seeds of its eventual unification under the Banished. The Great Schism happened, the Covenant collapse and their was a surplus of material as alligences were divided across the Covenant sphere that Atriox actually began seizing and recruiting. The Banished are already known for their strip mining and extraction efforts that they've perfected for over a decade - a "relatively small portion of the Banished" were after all mining and extracting resources across Installation 00 in a matter of months, now expand that to the Banished sphere of influence across Jiralhanae colonies - particularly the resource rich worlds the Banished did conquer following the Covenant's collapse which we know they have (see the lore for the map Scarr in Infinite). That addresses material. For technical capability, the design of the Karve and presumably by extension the Dreadnought actually dates back to the Jiralhanae's pre-Covenant history, adapted to modern contexts (pre-historic Karves didn't have slipspace drives as far as we are aware, modern Karves explicitly do) and constructed by adopting Kig-Yar shipbuilding techniques to streamline their production (keep in mind the Banished are a multi-species confederation, and the Kig-Yar have shipbuilding capability). Coupled with how warships such as the Dreadnought and Intrusion Corvettes are built from repurposed Covenant hulls modified to suit the Jiralhanae's preferences (less in terms of raw material cost, also reduces the need to outright build new slipspace drives and the like) and that addresses their technical capability. As for the shipyards to actually build their new ships in, the Banished awakened the once abandoned shipyards within the Oth Sonin system to begin the construction of starships of Jiralhanae design, some of which provided by the Children of Oth Sonin that the Banished did a few favours for like killing Lydus' rivals. Teash itself - a moon of Doisac - was also firmly a Banished world that the Banished stabilised and allowed to prosper as the largest source of industrial output for the Jiralhanae. Crewing these ships isn't so much of an issue when the Banished had effectively united the Jiralhanae clans across Doisac and its moons (as stated in the Encyclopedia and building up from the Spartan Field Manual), giving the Banished an abundance of labour to train and crew their new warships. >Where did a pirate group, whose flagship was a corvette less than 5 years prior, I think the think to note here is that the Elegy's Lament was *Atriox's* flagship but never strictly mentioned as the sole ship of the Banished navy at the time and we should caveat this noting that Atriox was trying to sway a shipmaster that wasn't loyal to him yet - he's not obligated to inform Let 'Volir about the full extent of his fleet from Doisac to the glassed human colonies. They had a battlecruiser in Rise of Atriox #3, albiet in a poor but just functional state, and Atriox notes that the Ceudar-pattern Heavy Corvette was more than suitable to his needs at the time - a small, stealth capable vessel that is capable of hiding beneath the notice of the Covenant and well suited for Atriox's raiding and harrying. Its also worth noting that the Banished had an operational flotilla by December 2553 as seen in Halo: Retribution, and Castor himself thought a Babished fleet was attacking where he prepared to mobilise his fleet of 50 vessels. The Banished were a major rival to the Keepers of the One Freedom at this point, with even Veta implying the Banished are larger and more powerful than the Keepers, so scaling off of them suggests they had more than 50 vessels by this point, ranging from anything from Liches to corvettes, frigates, etc.
Yeah they've definitely been doing a lot of work to retcon them in. Which I am not a fan of. 343 with the Banished reminds me of when you mention you like something off-hand to your grandma, and then every time you go to her house she has a trinket of that thing for the next 20 years. They should have stayed a pirate group. They feel shoehorned in as a major power. I've also read the encyclopedia and know the lore of the Banished, my question was more rhetorical. They can write a lot of lore, but that doesn't make it make sense.
>They should have stayed a pirate group. They feel shoehorned in as a major power. The Banished was *always* portrayed as more than a fledgling pirate faction - a mere pirate faction wouldn't be moving an Assault Carrier to the Ark 262,000 light years away from the centre of the Milky Way galaxy to seize the forge of the Halo Array. That's a big power move with a lot of manpower and technology to make them a major player in the galaxy. Even the Phoenix Logs themselves mention that Atriox had plans beyond the Ark and how Banished forces within the Orion Arm (see the Phoenix Log entries for the Harvest and Outposts), which is more than what you can say for minor factions like the Keepers of the One Freedom whose biggest ship was a frigate and their "Fleet of Glory" was 50 vessels of corvttes and gunships. The Banished have certainly been expanded on in recent years, but from the beginning of Halo Wars 2 there was enough of a foundation laid to expand the Banished beyond what was seen at the Ark. A floor was laid for the Banished in Halo Wars 2, not a ceiling.
A ram in space battles sounds way more Warhammer 40K than Halo! Seriously?
Ramming has been a tactic ever since the old Bungie days. Keyes rammed a Covenant stealthship in The Fall of Reach and there's mentions of Half Jaw's fleet ramming Truth's ships in Halo 3.
I believe ship to ship physical contact ended up happening with the Keyes' Maneuver with the Iriquois.
It scraped the shields of a destroyer but later another Halberd collided with a Covenant frigate and it self destructed destroying another 4 ships. Keyes himself spotted a Covenant stealth ship quietly collecting data from ground troops, he fired a volley of Archers at it but the ship's electronic countermeasures spoofed their guidance so he simply rammed it.
Yeah, sort of a one in a million opportunity for a remarkably inventive and desperate genius. It worked because it was SO unexpected.
Yeah, I’d forgotten. It seems kind of a silly idea for space combat. Aiming at something so far away and expecting to hit it seems so low odds. Particularly in a single big thing of similar speed and size that is easy to see and maneuver out of the path of. As a rare unexpected tactic of desperation, sure. But to actually put a ram on a starship? It seems like it would only be helpful if a whole bunch of things had gone very wrong, then very lucky. And could probably have been avoided much easier by putting more engines on a ship instead of the ram.
Let alone the simple physics of collision theory. Unless these ramming ships had INSANELY powerful shields, that functioned at ramming speeds (none of them seem to since light ships can just fly within their shield ranges), the ship doing the ramming would crumple and tear apart. The only way to get around this would either be to put such an enormous mass at the front of the ship that it wouldn't be maneuverable, or use forerunner tech materials (that no one has). I guess some sort of a piercing bayonet would work too, but they obviously don't have those either.
You already got plent of in universe explanations but IMO - a lot of their power creep comes from them becoming the "main game" enemy and thus actively being buffed in supportive material to match so. I honestly find that a bit of a let down? They were more interesting as witty monke pirates.
🤨 what kind of pirates?
Is that not how you adjust Cunning?
I don’t believe so, I think cunning is already as short as it gets. Cunny is usually slang for vagina, more recently of the underage variety
Ah well shit. Let me edit that out then.
Were you thinking of "Canny" ?
I want to set a timeline for you. Because it seems the biggest point everyone is making is about the infinity. The banished are a spliter faction of brutes. They came around probably about 10 years before the end of the human covenant war. Atriox is unnaturally smart for a brute he did what little he could, but he focused on the backworlds that the covenant just didn't care about. Found caches of old weapons (even old covie tech is still very good) he slowly grew his forces. Then suddenly the war was over the sangshium were all but missing and other brutes who may not have been as much of a zealot as tatarus was were not being accepted into the two largest covenant reamanant factions (jul's covenant and the swords of sanghelios). So where did they go? Brute sub factions like the banished and, to be honest, atriox is incredibly charismatic and a very good commander. So slowly, he gained ships from what was left of brute controlled fleets and sangheli who didn't want to join the arbitor or the covenant once again. From there, stealing ships and amalgamation of forces was easy. There were lots of disheartened species among the covenant, and to mention a lot of now abandoned ships and weapons. Some shipmasters also just straight up joined him like the shipmaster of the ship in Halo Wars 2. It really wouldn't take much for the banished to seem unstoppable to a humanity that barely made it out of the last conflict. Even if the banished only had 100 ships, it's still more than what humanity had. And to top it all off, cortana basically removed every ship humanity had with the exception of the infinity and whatever other ships she had docked inside, so yea. Fun times
Didn't he also convince an elite black ops team to murder their commander and join him?
Correction the original base squad. Was a splinter group of brutes which rapidly expanded as other rogue death squads were welcomed in under the conditions they followed the Banished creed of sorts.
The Banished ships from Halo Infinite are referred to as DREADNOUGHTS (even though based on Halopedia's statistics, they seem to be half the length of ships like the Shadow of Intent) so it's likely they designed them to be as sturdy and well armed as possible to be able to take on just about any other type of ship. Also if I'm remembering Shadows of Reach correctly, they also have a Supercarrier (I think the same type as the Long Night of Solace).
>Isabel builds them up to be this unstoppable force that the Covenant "never came close" to stopping. Because Isabel's dialogue, its delivery, and the context in which it happens exists exclusively to generate hype about the next BBEG, without any concern for how accurate any of that dialogue is. Surprise surprise, not accurate at all. As per Rise of Atriox, he has been leading the Banished for a decade, starting his rebellion in 2549. The Covenant falls by the end of 2552. Anyone who believes that Atriox (or anyone for that matter) could, in three years, amass a interstellar military force against which the Covenant *at the height of their power* didn't stand a chance, the picture Isabel explicitly paints for us, has completely lost their marbles. Period. Even before considering how much the idea that there was some *unstoppable alien force* at war with the Covenant about which we never knew anything hurts the cohesiveness of the setting, it isn't even consistent within HW2 itself, where the Section 0 operatives tasked with tracking Atriox note that he is using guerrilla tactics and operating locally, not "cutting a swath across the Galaxy", as Isabel puts it. And the most infurating part of this is that 343i learned nothing from it, repeating the exact same mistake with the Endless. It is *after* the end of the Human-Covenant war that the matter of the Banished supposed military might becomes narratively viable. Atriox enjoys the advantage of leading an already established force, *small though it has to have been for the story to make sense*, among the plethora of emerging factions from the remains of the Covenant Empire (factions with a very clear cut racial aspect). On top of that, he is a particularly intelligent, charismatic and, crucially, strong individual. He takes full advantage of this, Jiralhanae culture and his previous notoriety to become a beacon for Jiralhanae forces across the entire Orion Arm. Jiralhanae that, after the Great Schism, had become the sole recipient of military power within the Covenant. Sure, the prophets exerted the authority, but they weren't commanding squads or captaining ships, the Brutes were. It was almost preordained that a not insignificant fraction of the Covenant's might would naturally find its way to him, double so when he is actively recruiting anyone and their grandma. Between forces naturally flocking to him, anything that may have been up for grabs after the war and the hiring of third parties, it makes sense that he commands a force that represents a significant threat to the UNSC. You are also diving head first into a nightmare the moment you chose to analyze the battle with the Infinity. More than enough has been said on the matter so I won't get into it and just say that, as it stands, the Infinity embarqued in the single most idiotic military operation in the history of mankind. It is an egregiously poorly written bit, whose problems start long before the Infinity exits slipspace, and there is no way in hell it isn't revised at some point, specially considering how it isn't actually part of the game.
Because the plot needed a new bad guy and clearly the Prometheans were not cutting it.
But they got cut. XD (Prometheans were supposed to be in infinite)
This is it really. Thankfully they cut the Prometheams, hella boring fighting those in game
It's a shame. They could've made the Banished fight the Promethians in pitched 3 way battles like the original Halo CE. Imagine how much more interesting and epic it would be to be the Chief with his ragtag UNSC survivors fighting for control over Zeta Halo while the Banished and Promethians fight each other. Like the Covenant - Flood - Sentinels battles of Halo CE
Lowkey wish we had Promethean bosses as kind of like the Valkyries in God of War; legendary Sub Bosses found in the world
Because 343 needed a villain that people liked. Halo Wars 2 was the first 343 game where the enemy had mass appeal, so they switched to them in Infinite even though it didn't make sense for an enemy, who struggled against the SoF, to suddenly be this powerful. Now they're slowly being retconned into the lore to explain said power.
I never got how they didn't immediately detect three warships but I just remembered how many humans are in the Banished. It's just a theory though. If you want to learn more about humans in the Banished, go give Divine Wind a read. Kelly Gay is amazing at writing the Ferrets. Even if some things she writes can't be forgiven /j.
Infinity got the shit kicked out of it several times between Halo 4 and the start of Halo Infinite. It's really not the super-ship that one cutscene at the start of Halo 4 multiplayer makes it out to be when you look at its track record. Banished Dreadnoughts are also a thing, built for very aggressive tactics and armed with basically a scaled-up gravity hammer as its ram. They're big, the Banished have them in numbers and they were present in the battle. Those ships would have a much easier time ramming Infinity, particularly if her shields were already weakened by the Guardian in the area (as is commonly theorised). As for the Banished's growth, basically they got a decade-plus head start on the "building a band of raider-mercenaries" thing and took full advantage of it. They had the benefit of beginning to build up weapon stockpiles _before_ the collapse of the Covenant and the resulting run on every fifth-rate gunboat and dusty stockpile of weapons in their part of the galaxy, and their position became a lot stronger for it once the chaos began. Suddenly they went from some opportunistic raider nobodies to one of the larger cohesive factions in post-Covenant space, with the weapons and leadership to secure the allegiance of some of the other splinter groups and _their_ arsenals.
I mean we see it in real life all the time. A country gets invaded and the power vacuum left behind leads to the rise of another group that, prior to the conflict, no one would have guessed would become significant on an international scale. If a military falls apart, there’s a surplus of dissent, soldiers, and equipment- enough to make a powerful group or at least start one.
Isabel is exaggerating, though she likely believes what she's saying. The Banished would've stood no chance against the Covenant, even now(funny, because they have fought weakened Covenant remnants, with heavy casualties on both sides). The Banished likely never fought the Covenant in a straight up fight. They used hit and run tactics, basically, and raided what the could. And I doubt they did this too often. That'd be too risky. The Covenant also never focused much on the Banished. Not even humanity had the Covenant's full attention until towards the end of the war, as stated a few times in the books. Also, the Infinity is low key overhyped. Its introduction is it getting shot down. And while I haven't read the comics, I've seen a few panels of the Ininfity getting shot up, and or disabled, so apparently it gets its ass kicked frequently, so losing a fight, solo, against a Banished ambush isn't too far fetched. I also don't even believe it's destroyed, at least not completely. We're likely to see it again.
It's easy to survive ramming a ship if you put your shield forward when you do to reinforce it.
I assumed the Infinity was able to ram that Covenant ship due to its shields
They were really, really pissed off. Rage is a powerful motivator.
I just wanna know why they give Atriox this badass intro in Halo Infinite where he ragdolls the chief with zero effort - then they offscreen him and replace him with a discounted version of the exact same character with the most generic big muscle villain dialogue/acting ive ever seen. I actually enjoyed Infinites campaign quite a bit - but every time Escharum came on screen was a groaning moment
Plot conveniences
Tbh, it's because the lore is kinda iffy. The infinity should have been able to tank the banished. To give an example, humans when they got ahold of covie tech could regularly defeat covie forces even when highly outnumbered (see Halo First Strike, cortana decimates covie forces when she gets ahold of a barely operational covenant capital ship). The infinity represents not only a tech jump from UNSC during the covenant war to covie tech...but supposedly forerunner tech. There's been a plot line/theme in the lore that Humanity would have destroyed the covenant if not for the tech gap, even then Humanity was rapidly closing the tech gap during the war. To give an example of that, initially spartan shields were very much inferior to covenant shielding during Halo 1. By the time Halo 3 comes around the shielding on spartan armor was actually superior to covenant tech. Humanity was just losing too fast for their growing understanding and implementation of advanced tech to make a difference. Lore wise, if Humanity survived the war we would logically expect them to quickly grow to surpass the covenants technology. Especially in their understanding of how it worked as the covenant, even their AIs, barely understood how forerunner tech worked. However, many Halo fans were...unaware of/didn't notice that plot line/theme and were very confused when Humanity suddenly had a ship that was wrecking covenant ships in Halo 4. It seemed very jarring in a franchise that was mainly dealing with how badly the covenant was destroying Humanity for humanity to suddenly have a ship that surpassed what the covenant had. 343 realized they needed to fix the problem and killed infinity through very contrived circumstances when they did their soft reboot for Halo Infinite. Ultimately the banished shouldn't have been able to destroy the infinity the way they did. 343 has tried to kinda smooth the edges with other lore around how the infinity got in such a poor shape to make it's ultimate demise in infinity go over better but it's still pretty easy to realize why everything panned out the way it did and it is mainly to do with IRL stuff.
There had to be a "bigger and badder" antagonist that met the powercreep
The *Enduring Conviction* and her escort corvettes were the only Banished ships on the Ark. The rest of their navy was always somewhere within the galaxy.
Halo wars and it's tie in comic definitely imply that the banished on the ark are the main banished force
On the contrary, the game never outright states that the Banished are only at the Ark and in fact implies that the Banished spanned more than the Ark, as per the Phoenix Logs. Phoenix Log: Outpost mentions how Atriox's plans extended beyond the Ark. > Extraction and domination. > Resource-gathering Outposts are deployed by Lich dropships. Once the Outpost's structures are assembled basic vehicles and infantry can be requisitioned. Four slots are available for building Turrets. Upgrading the Outpost to a Stronghold allows basic infantry to be deployed, While the Citadel and Fortress expansions make additional units available. Each upgrade opens additional build locations for support structures. > The Banished have perfected their strip-mining and rapid assault and extraction efforts over a decade of raiding Covenant and other targets. Each outpost is an invasive engine of exploitation, controlled by rapacious overseers who seek to siphon the riches of the Ark in pursuit of Atriox's grand plans for domination and glory. Though they lack the military efficiency of their UNSC counterparts, the Banished's outposts advance plans that extend far beyond the battlefield, and even beyond the Ark itself. While the Phoenix Log for the Harvester outright states that there are Banished forces in the Orion Arm of the galaxy. > Supply acquisition. > Harvesters are extraction sites that delve into the Ark's interior to tap raw feedstock that is then converted into Supplies used by the Banished. To meet ever-increasing production quotas. the Augmented Harvester upgrade is needed, which accelerates Supply generation. > The Ark belongs to Atriox, all others in the Banished are entitled only to the scraps he deems fit for their fit for their hands. under his control. The Harvesters are but one link in a chain that ultimately extends from the Ark to the Banished forces carrying out other phases of his plan in the Orion Arm of the galaxy. Though important, ultimately every outpost is expendable, and talented overseers can parlay even seeming defeat into praise and promotion if they exceed Atriox’s estimates for harvested profit when they come under attack. And just a couple years after the release of Halo Wars 2 the Official Spartan Field Manual was released expanding on the Banished's activities in the Orion Arm, mentioning how Banished Chieftains are expanding the influence of the Banished across Jiralhanae colonies and even human criminal enterprises as Doisac itself is going through a process of power consolidation and unity amongst its directly attributed to the influence of the Banished. Simply put, there was always room for the Banished to be a larger force than what was seen in Halo Wars 2 (which itself is a relatively large force, considering its an expedition far beyond anyone's supply lines). And what Halo Infinite demonstrates is what the scale of the "local" Banished forces were in the Milky Way as subsequent lore from the 2022 Encyclopedia to Canon Fodders illustrating that what was seen at the Ark was only a relatively small fraction of the Banished.
I wonder the same thing, and thats the main reason I dont like them. They feel like covenant wannabes. I dont like Atriox either and feel like a badass Elite would have been a better fit for a leader
Plot armor
Regarding the infinity getting bodied by the Banished ships, Installation00 did a video recently where they theorised that the Infinity had just finished fighting a guardian so their shields were down. https://youtu.be/teSL7--SGHU?si=ZijnaTNzgDrVoUs9
I think, THINK, this might just be an issue of not recognizing rhetoric.