: So, the Covenant is five thousand years old, and both the Elites and the
: Prophets were spacefaring before it was founded. In the time since, the
: Covenant expanded. Grunts, Jackals, Hunters, Drones, Brutes, and possibly
: other sapient species were discovered and brought into the fold.

: Imagine what the Covenant built in that time. Are there sprawling
: metropolises to rival Mass Effect's Illium? Worlds that were tamed by
: Jackals or given to the Grunts to live upon?

: OK, cutting to the chase, I'm working on these assumptions: A: Covenant
: slipspace engines were generally faster than ours from the git-go, since
: they were reverse-engineering Forerunner technology. In short, they had a
: blueprint for the way forward, even though they didn't completely
: understand it.

: B: Covenant colonization would have been limited by transit time. Since the
: Covenant apparently did not suffer the same communication limitations that
: the UNSC did, communication lag between centers of power like High Charity
: or Sanghelios and their outer colonies would not have been a limiting
: factor on colonization.
: In short, the Covenant would not have the same problems of governance that
: the UNSC did because their communication was faster.

: C: The search for Forerunner artefacts extended far beyond the territory that
: the Covenant colonized. The Ministry of Tranquility's search would only
: have been limited by the time it takes to search a system with a Luminary,
: the need to repair and refit its ships, and presumably by budget
: shortfalls.

: D: It was a Ministry of Tranquility ship that ran into Harvest. That's about
: half a year of travel from planet Earth, since Harvest is among the UNSC's
: most farflung colonies, Loftus's star chart be darned!

Sorry my charts are upsetting. It's cataloging the facts, not deliberately making it burdensome. :) Harvest was the farthest colony until Bungie staffer Joe Staten formalized the actual star Harvest orbits and chose something near to Earth. (and then made its nearest neighbor Madrigal an actual far away star (thanks Mr. Buckell).

: Imagine the logistical nightmare it must have been to wage war on Humanity.
: How far across was the Covenant's Empire? Two years of travel? More?
: How long would it have taken to travel from their central colonies to the
: front lines? Perhaps staging colonies were set up at their nearest border,
: where conscripts were brought to train and organize before the long
: journey. Something like that could've been interesting to explore in the
: fiction.

Calculations based on information from the novels has put UNSC Slipspace speeds as fast as 2.1 light years per day. Covenant Slipspace speeds have been calculated to about 8 light years per day. If they didn't want these calculations to be made, they shouldn't have seeded the novels with calculable info.

: Anyhow, whatever the distance between Earth and Sanghelios is, the UNSC
: Infinity crossed it in less than a week. In a single jump. Thanks to
: "Forerunner Enhancements".
: So, yeah, it's official: The Infinity travels at the speed of plot.

: Now, I started writing this for a reason other than to complain, but I can't
: quite recall what it is at the moment...

: OK. I guess I'll start out by wondering who was behind this change, 343i or
: Karen Traviss. It's very much in keeping with the "New Humanity"
: that 343i is pushing, but the Ludicrous Speed and the justifications for
: the technological leap seem to be exclusive to the Glasslands trilogy.

: The justifications I'm talking about are centered around the Huragok, how all
: but one of the Covenant-bred ones seem to have left Human-Covenant space.
: In addition, the Huragok from the Shield World are outright stated to be
: superior to the Covenant breeds. Humans are getting technology better than
: what resulted from 5,000 years of Covenant R&D because of these Huragok,
: even though the Covenant would also have started with similar stock.
: I mean, they all had to come from a Forerunner reliquary somewhere, right?

: Thoughts?