Quote Originally Posted by ChaosLord29 View Post
I think the lore is pretty clear that the Covenant don't just sit around and bide their time. They go on the offensive at the earliest opportunity and either incorporate it into the Covenant or they exterminate it. Again, like the Tau, except the Tau don't pick fights they can't win. The covenant are just the opposite. They pick fights with anything that comes across their path and sacrifice whatever is necessary in order to achieve victory. That is the entire history of the Covenant's great journey prior to the events of Halo, so you can damn well bet that's going to be where and how they start in the 40k universe.
Who's sitting around? Taking steps to restore your resource base is a very active step. Repopulating your species is an active step. Building up a new empire is a very active step. A society place under such pressure is going to look inward first. The greatest threat is a Schism on High Charity and the Covenant but however that plays out you can bet who's left is going to care about surival of their species foremost and rebuilding.

You seem convinced the Covenant must act with suicidal stupidity. Why?

Now, whether they find some pliable xenos species to incorporate is pretty likely, but you can damn well bet it's not going to be before they run across the Imperium or any other great power that they're just not going to be able to beat.
They don't have to beat them when they can out range every ship in the Imperium.

Its not a match up anymore. The Covenant have no reason to take on something as huge as the Imperium with no resources and vastly reduced population. Of course it would likely take a long while before the Imperium even recognized they exist to. Much less do the work of tracking down the y'know FTL-capable High Charity.

How much more evidence do you need man?

Standard Imperial Lance batteries melt through ships double or triple the size of the average Covenant craft.
So they melt through ships of their own size then?

While Imperial ships top out at 8 kms for their big battleships, when into the more common ships you see 4-5 km ranges down to escort frigates I saw quoted at only 750m. While the Covenant has ships below the supercarrier still measuring 5 km, another at 3 km. So yeah as far as scale goes I'm not seeing a size. Maybe the Imperial fleet is reliant on void shields over armor

Of course mass is on its own a very meaningless standard, only some basis after some basis for armor and shield quality is there can it start to be meaningful should they be considered equal.

Do you have something less arbitrary then ships destroying other ships for you baseline? I've said mine before, lance batteries used as tactical orbital strikes in the Cain books on the scale of a nuke. I've not heard you cite what events you are getting your scale from

Their are hundreds of Space Marine heroes the equal or better of Master Chief who was a key force in bringing about the downfall of the Covenant.
Yes and without how many of the supporting cast would the Covenant have... gone on to be scheduled to appear in Halo 4? 343 only know what state they're in but hey not like they're dead. Or that Master Chief killed every last one of them personally.

The Covenant is the only ones really to blame for the Great Schism.

The Covenant have absolutely no defense against the psykers of the Imperium or any other species.
Fair enough but your most common psyker is a blind guy that talks to other blind guys. Well actually most common is the guy who's screams light the cosmos but I digress. Of those that have something useful how many are utterly immune to getting shot?

Face it, they're a feather weight in what is a Super Heavy Weight melee. They just don't operate on the same scale as the standard 40k powers even if they have comparable technology.
Or the Imperium is a barely modern on average force bloated with more that it can ever manage while torn at by all sides and all its neatest toys it generally has fewer of then it has planets to defend them with?

What's not comparable so far? FTL is flat out better, that alone properly used is the most important advantage you can have. Both destroy planets with some semi-regularity so I continue to see some degree of parity in space. IG infantry do at best equal their other reality human counterparts, but the Covenant. The five Space Marines that actually show up at a time are a lot less common then plasma grenades, snipers, fuel rod canons, and even energy swords.

Now that does leave vehicles.... which yeah the Covenant seems to lack a real tank so doesn't have a good answer to the Leman Russ (which actually occurs enmasse) and Scarabs fall into the same problem Space Marines do. This has less to do with serious gaps in their overall tier and the apparent lack of serious mechanized combat in the Haloverse. Also Covenant vehicles also being a case where being more advanced doesn't equal better.