The Battle for Earth Begins

Earth spends most of the Covenant War hidden behind secrecy, the Cole Protocol, and humanity’s shrinking defensive perimeter. In October 2552, that protection ends. This episode examines Earth’s defenses as the Covenant finally arrives in the Sol system. Orbital MAC platforms, UNSC fleets, fighters, Marines, and planetary forces engage an enemy that has reached the one world humanity cannot afford to abandon. The initial Covenant force under the Prophet of Regret is unexpectedly small because Regret did not fully understand that the planet he had discovered was humanity’s homeworld. That mistake gives defenders an opportunity they would not have possessed against a properly concentrated invasion fleet. Fighting spreads from orbit to stations such as Cairo and then toward East Africa as Covenant ships force their way through the defensive network. For twenty-seven years, the UNSC has fought to keep the enemy away from Earth. The war has now reached the population and government everything else was sacrificed to protect.