squidhands said:
Wow, that's awesome. I was affected most by Jorge's sacrifice, and was really disappointed that he left the game so soon. Having Emile as your escort in the final mission was pretty much worthless; I would much rather have Jorge by my side at the end. What you say makes much more sense; Spartan-II's were supposed to be a much heartier group anyway. Love it.
NOTE: This is a wall of text. A Great Wall of Text. Just skip it if you don't want to hear my sort of re-rendition of The Pillar of Autumn.
Sort of adding on to this: maybe you never actually destroy the Supercarrier--rather, you somehow get split up from Jorge, and he gets stuck on the Corvette heading there, and you're still left falling back into atmosphere; the Corvette goes through a slipspace jump and is never heard from again.
Cut to the Pillar of Autumn, where the Supercarrier is once again in atmosphere, barely visible in the distance, heading to the Autumn in hopes of destroying it. You actually start off with the injuries Carter has taken from a second attempt at manually boarding the Supercarrier, and the Phantom and two Banshees chasing you. Emile manages to kill those two Banshees, like before, and the Phantom continues following the Pelican. This time around, you start off in the area with the two Scarabs, and Carter decides that there's no way that both of you could take both of them on. So, you two both drop out the back, somehow dampening your fall, and Carter rams the Scarab closest to the edge, which causes it to fall off.
Once you two land, you find yourselves with a Mongoose at the other end of that small clearing, and the remaining Scarab between you two. Emile says for you to take it--he'll take care of the Scarab. It draws closer to you, and one of its legs gets dangerously close--cue Emile stabbing the leg with his Kukri, and when the leg comes up again, he uses it to propel himself onto the front of the Scarab. You don't see what goes on, exactly, but by the time you've killed some covvies and walked over to the Scarab, you look back and it's looking right at you... and your reticule is green.
"You go on. I'll take out what I can."
As you're making this Mongoose run, you eventually make it to where that Wraith is--however, instead of fighting all of the enemies, Emile simply warns you to stay back, and he takes it (and an additional Phantom hovering nearby) out using the Scarab's main cannon. You just have to mop up a few enemies, and the cave section with the Skirmishers and Drones is skipped entirely because Emile makes you a bridge by shooting down a small rock formation. You look off into the distance, and the Supercarrier is
much closer now--you don't have much time.
A Scarab gets the jump on Emile by climbing up the rock face where Carter initially sacrifices himself, but Emile ultimately defeats it by shooting it so it falls back down the cliff and explodes. You look, at the camera zooms in on many more Scarabs--at least around seven visible, or so--in the distance. You find an overturned Warthog on the path ahead, and use that for this final run. As you're doing this, Emile is slightly lagging behind, shooting several groups of enemies far ahead of you, not limited to Elite Ranger squadrons, Brutes, and the like. A Phantom or two may even be shot, and you're given this view of a looming horror--the Supercarrier and the Scarabs, many more of which are now visible. You make it to the landing pad.
Keyes takes Cortana, and you make your way up to the Mass Driver. Emile remains in the Scarab, and you two begin taking out Banshees and Phantoms as usual--no final Firefight sequence involved. When you kill enough, they retreat--making way for a swarm of Seraphs to fly from the Supercarrier and attempt a bombing run at you. You and Emile ultimately kill them. Emile's Scarab takes a few hits, but is otherwise fine.
Then, you notice the Scarabs: once simply a background event, they've now made their way to you--and this is introduced by one's giant leg smashing into the platform underneath you, one to the left of you on the building's roof, and it looking you right in the face, charging its gun. The "Carrier shot" reticule pops up, and you basically shoot the Scarab through one end and out the other. Many more Scarabs are approaching, and you manage to damage them all into their "self-destruct sequence," if not blowing them up outright. But then, their numbers begin to become overpowering: there's no way you could possibly kill them all at this point. A cutscene then occurs: Emile making his final stand.
"I'll keep 'em busy. You got to make that last shot."
And, in a single bound, his Scarab literally
leaps over your head, smashing right on top of another one. The main gun is damaged; he attempts to fire it, only for it to create a small explosion and make his Scarab stagger. He uses the secondary fire to attract their attention, and begins beating the other Scarabs to death, using the legs to significantly damage them, with Six taking killing shots from a distance. They manage to defeat most of the nearby Scarabs, and Emile's Scarab isn't even a vehicle anymore--it is simply crawling, dragging itself on a single leg, secondary turret not even operable. It begins to head towards the Supercarrier.
"I'm done. Going to keep on going--take out whatever forces I can."
"Slipspace rupture detected."
A lone Corvette appears just above the Supercarrier. Emile, realizing that Jorge may very well come back in a final attempt to take it out, is encouraged.
"Jorge? That you, big-"
Emile's Scarab is then bombed; once, twice, a cascade of plasma enveloping his Covenant coffin.
"Slipspace rupture detected."
"Slipspace rupture detect--"
"Slipspace rupture--"
"Slipspace--"
"Slipspace rupture detected..."
A small Covenant fleet, at least twenty Corvettes and five Carriers strong, appear out of Slipspace. The camera goes back to Six, who isn't manning the controls as intently as he was before--he knows he's lost. He's simply staring at the swarm, the one that will light the last match to turn Reach into the pyre it will become. Six regains focus, attempting to take a few shots at a Corvette. He manages to damage one, but realizes it's ultimately futile.
"Slipspace rupture detected."
"This is Captain Keyes. Lieutenant, I don't know how we're getting the Autumn out of this mess. We're going to need a miracle."
"Consider it done, Captain."
A shadow looms over Six--he looks up, to see half a Corvette and a fading slipspace rupture fly over his head, the Corvette flying right atthe oncoming armada.
"This is Spartan-052. Powder keg is aboard..." His Corvette is struck from the side by several plasma torpedoes. "Ez megszakad a szívem..."
The slipspace bomb goes off, taking out the
entire approaching fleet, and ripping the Supercarrier into two. While it won't save Reach in the end, it will, by all means, give the Pillar of Autumn precious time for escape. As it does, Six looks to the skies as it departs, and begins to head far, far away from the site: after losing such a massive amount of forces, no doubt that area would be a hot zone within days--hours, even...