: I'm going to disagree with your last point. If ecall thdetailioin
: The Fall of Reach and The Flood, plus the Conversations From The Universe
: booklet, it had been well established that the Covenant (particularly the
: Elites) actually felt that humanity was WAY beneath them, not even
: deigning to legitimize them as intelligent life, but mere animals. They
: were appalled that they desecrated holy sites and showed no understanding
: of the Forerunners at all.

: As honor-bound warriors, Elites only fought legitimate enemies, so throughout
: most of the Human-Covenant war, Elites wouldn't lower themselves to fight
: humans directly, but would just exterminate them from orbit. When ground
: action was required, it fell to the lesser Covenant species to do so, like
: Grunts and Jackals (whom the Elites didn't care for much either, but
: merely tolerated).

: It was when the Grunts and Jackals were really unable to win against
: deployments of Spartans that Elites began to really be in on the fight
: with humans. I think it was written well with truly unique alien cultures
: in mind before the Covenant seemed to just be different takes on human
: traits.

: I think it would have been good to continue with the story with that
: beginning in mind.

Counter point, we have plenty of examples from 343 and Bungie detailing how some Elites respected humans fighting tenacity and wondered why they hadn't been offered into the Covenant. I like this more, I think Elites would be chomping at the bit to fight humanity on Harvest when they fought to retake it. Even if Elites did think humans were animals, they would probably think it beneath them to never engage in ground combat. Basically I'm just saying I'm glad that little bit of TFoR was changed.