I'm not a huge fan of how mustache-twirlingly evil this series is portraying the UNSC as so far. I mean, ODSTs gunning down a crowd of unarmed protesters? They're not exactly doing a good job presenting the conflict as a morally gray one.

And in any case, shouldn't the UNSC have decades of experience dealing with rebellions and thus know that this kind of thing tends to backfire horribly?