1: If you had not read lately there are only a total of 76 worlds that were glassed by the Covenant. I put down 80 as it is an easy figure to relate to how many colonies the UNSC had at the time. Not to mention the worlds they colonized during the war.

2: While colonies did depend on resources from other nearby colonies in some cases most were able to support their own civilization and industry. And as I just said they used nearby colonies for resources as colonies farther away were just not cost effective for transporting goods. Thus each cluster of colonies could have existed independantly from the others.

3: The Home Fleet was hammered in the Battle for Earth, not any other major UNSC Fleet. They have alot of space to cover and so they wouldnt put all their ships in one particular spot. Earth was heavily defended yes but it wasnt the only world being defended. And actually REACH was the military stronghold, not Earth.

4: The Covenant bairly tapped into UNSC controled space. It is not a flat sheet of paper on which planets are placed. Its a bloody sphere that encompasses thousands of worlds, some inhabited and others yet to be colonized. They had many, many other worlds to destroy before they took out any "last stronghold" of humanity.

Again, PLEASE tell me where you get the statistic of only 79 planets being glassed! 

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/h/halo/storyline.htm

 The majority of the Outer Colonies were glassed and a good chunk of the Inner Colonies were as well. I do NOT see the UNSC drawing up any more resources from the remaining Outer Colonies for fear of overstretching itself.

LMAO 76 total colonies were glassed. In 2492 the UNSC had over 800 colonies. That clearly is not a majority.

See above.

In the books they talk about military strong points, not actual human populations. Worlds that have more value are defended better than others. But that doesnt mean that other worlds are not strongpoints for humanity.

And if you are infering that the UNSC had bairly over 152 vessels to its navy you are sorely misguided. We are talking thousands of vessels at the very least. Space is not small. I wouldnt doubt that the UNSC fleet had atleast 4 vessels (different classes allowed) for every planet they had colonized. That would be the bare minimum for a galactic civilization. More than likely they had atleast 10 vessels for each planet. The loss of 152 ships is nearly insignificant when compaired to those numbers. The only reason why it was so shocking was because they had to divert resources away from other defended planets to make up for the loss.

In the Battle of Alpha Aurigae, the UNSC Navy had over 107 warships and the Covenant  12. The UNSC won, but it lost 37 of its warships.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Alpha_Aurigae

In the Battle of XI Boötis A, the UNSC had 70 ships, the Covenant 8. The UNSC won again, but it lost 30 of its ships.

And those are just two battles within a few years! Add to the 152 lost at Reach in 2552 (and to the many probably lost between 2530-2552), and add to the near destruction of the Home Fleet, and I don't think you're left with much.

What bloody timeline are you in? The Human/Covenant War was between 2525 and 2553. Thats less than 30 years. And of those years less than one was spent in an alliance with the Sangheili.

A calculating error. My apologies.

The loss of Earth would have been tragic but it is not a death blow by any means.

In terms of symbolism, military leadership, access to the Ark and access to Earth's resources? I'd say it would have been game over for the UNSC.

As I stated earlier you have sorely underestimated a galactic empire.

Dude. by 2553, the UEG's galactic empire was in shambles. See above.

1: The Covenant did not occupy Earth. They took two brief looks at it and were pounded for those looks. Resistance from Covenant forces in the first assault were completely destroyed. The second assault was nearly wiped out as well by UNSC forces. And the Covenant concentrated their forces in one particular area which simply was contained and squeezed by the UNSC ground forces. The only way the Covenant kept their ships on order was their ground based AA guns.

The first time, they were destroyed only because the Spartans (ohhh!) destroyed the 500+ Covenant fleet gathering around the  Unyielding Hierophant. And yes, they were due for Earth. I don't care what you say, the UNSC would have never withstood a Covenant invasion force of 500 ships.

2: Any soldier is an invaluable resource. The moment you forget that is the moment you get destroyed. Spartan-117 happend to be in the right place at the right time. He is a good soldier, but also a foolish one.

So a poorly trained militia soldier is as invaluable as an experienced supersoldier? John may have been foolish, but his "foolish" actions saved humanity.

Again you apparently didnt read the books properly. Spartan-117 did not hold that many awards. He did hold more than the command staff that survived the crash of the Pillar of Autumn but not an entire ODST battallion. As a unit the Spartans were given massive amounts of medals, but what good is a medal going to do you in your next combat action?

I meant the Spartans as a whole won more awards than an entire ODST battallion.

Also Jenkins physical abilites were superior. He was a soldier who survived heavy fighting against a superior enemy for 27 years. Just a regular old Marine. Hell he was kicking Covenant butt well before Spartan-117 was given his armor. I would trade the cost to train and equip a single Spartan-II for the cost to train and equip a Private Jenkins any day.

John was given his armor in 2525. During that time, Jenkins was just emerging from being a militia soldier from Harvest. And like I said, John did more fighting than Jenkins can ever withstand and accomplished far more than he ever could.

Oh and lets mention that the only reason why your dear Spartan-117 is not a bumbling Combat Form himself is Cortana. She bairly was able to save him, and even then it was not a sure thing. He was lucky and that is it. Oh and if he was infected he wouldnt be half the Marine Jenkins was as Jenkins retained his own mind in that form and acted with reasoned intent. Lets see your Spartan do that.

Luck, as is repeatedly stated, is on Spartan-117's side. And you realize Cortana was not with the Chief when he was shooting his way through the Library, right? She also wasn't with him for the majority of Halo 3 and he did just fine.

The only reason why Jenkins retained his own mind was because the infection form that got to him was old and withered, and couldn't control him completely. 

If you hadn't noticed ONI is very good at propaganda. The loss of Earth would have been downplayed so severely that UNSC worlds would have rallied behind it and fought even harder.

Er, you'd think with the loss of Reach and Earth, nothing ONI could spin up would work. And there wouldn't be a UNSC anymore after that anyway, because either the Flood would have gotten to them or Truth would have activated the Ark.

And if you did not notice the Covenant had no intrest in glassing Earth, otherwise they would have done it during the Second Battle of Earth. More than likely they wouldnt have glassed it at all due to the significance of it to the Forerunners.

No, but they had a general interest of, oh, I dunno, murdering every human being on the surface?

Oh so now you decide that I am actually not god and that I am fallable. Congratulations on realizing that. You managed to overcome your own hypocrisy.

Er?

Depends on the kinds of goverment they had at the time period. Who is to say that new forms of government will not arise in the future. We arent limited to the ones we already have.

And during such a war the military could take temperary control of the government and declare martial law. Or any number of other things in order to keep stability. As such Lord Hood would have been making most of the decisions for the UNSC. If he were to fall then it would fall to the next ranking officer and so on. That is until the crisis is averted, then the political leaders are reinstated for rebuilding and general needs.

Its a very flexable plan that can be changed on the fly.

With the Covenant boring in on Earth, I somehow doubt the political system would be very stable at all. 

True he didnt have many ships capable of such an assault however they had suprise on their side. They almost literally blindsided Truths forces. He caught them with their pants down and the sole reason for their survival was the activation of the Portal. That disabled the UNSC ships long enough for them to escape.

Yes, because UNSC ships can really damage a Forerunner Dreadnaught, the very same Dreadnaught that obliderated the Sangheili fleets in the Sangheili-Prophet Wars.

The length of the fight did put a drain on the Navy yes however they successfully fended off Truths fleet multiple times and still had major ships in orbit. More and more ships were being diverted from other systems to reinforce Earth. The outcome of that fight was in doubt for the Covenant as they were repeatedly beaten back in space and on the ground. They lost several objectives and bairly made it to the Portal before a major counter-strike could be put into effect.

Er, you realize that if Truth had used the Forerunner Dreadnaught against the UNSC, they would have stood no chance, right? If the outcome of the fight was in doubt, Truth would have used it for combat purposes as a last ditch effort.

Take note that there was not a single crusier or destroyer in the force that attacked Truth when he opened the portal. As far as we are aware the only UNSC warship (spesificly designed for war, that means the SoF is excluded) capable of in atmosphere flight is the frigate. Thus he would have said that he had only a handful of ships left. He litterally ment that he had only a handful of ships left capable of performing such a strike.

Or, because frigates are the cheapest UNSC warships available, they were the only ones left to them.

As I have said repeatedly, the UNSC was bairly scratched by this war in terms of planets and resources.

*sigh*

Again, see above.

As for High Charity it wasnt on its way to Earth, it was on its way to the Portal. Big difference as the Portal lead to an area outside of our known galaxy. The Flood was not truely intrested in Earth.

Why did Cortana say that the Gravemind was making its way to Earth then? Its original intent was to go to Earth and take control of the Ark. Now, here's what I don't get: how the Gravemind was able to get to the Ark so fast. My theory is that he indeed did go to Earth, but ignored it completely, as he knew of what was going to happen at the Ark, so he just sped on through to the Portal and thus the Ark.

And why Truth didnt take a human captive is beond me. Perhaps he didnt believe that they would need them in the end. Perhaps his forces werent left alive to take one captive. However he didnt take one, and because he didnt that would require a trip back through the Portal into the waiting sights of the UNSC military again. A very costly manuver which still would not nessissarly produce the result he needed.

Um. He took Sergeant Johnson captive...

More to the point, he probably thought he could do it on his own. He would have tried and failed. And so the taking of a human would have been needed after that failure.

He admitted to Johnson that he needs his help. So, he probably wasn't that deluded.

So again the UNSC had lots of time on their hands.

Yes, because you can really take your time with an entire Covenant mobile city of Flood speeding towards your last major planet now right?

So if St. Paul MN was destroyed right now I would just lay down and die because my home is blown up? I was born and raised there. Its where I come from. The loss of a planet is tragic but it is not the end of civilization. The UNSC had plenty of other world to fall back to. It was something that could be recovered.

Yes, to maybe a few dozen Inner Colonies, who by then were probably very politically instable, thanks to the huge influx of Outer Colony refugees.

And once again the Gravemind was not intrested in Earth. It was intrested in the Portal. It knew what stopped it the first time and knew how to stop it this time. That is why High Charity was not much of a threat to Earth. And as for the Flood who were actually on Earth they were destroyed in a few hours if not minutes. The Sangheili didnt fight them they glassed them. And took out half a continant in the process. The Flood threat on Earth was over just as quickly as it began.

Again, why did Cortana say the Gravemind was on its way to Earth then?

So again sorry for the late reply however I have had other... issues to attend to.

Understanable. We're all human.