Thel 'Vadam and the Covenant War: Quantified

Mr. Admirals | Heroic Posting Rampage
 
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Introduction
It is common knowledge that Thel 'Vadam, who we now know as the Arbiter played a bloody role in the Covenant War. Our only capability of quantifying the damage he wrought on humanity was with his only known battle being the attack on Reach. When The Master Chief Collection released back in 2014, though, the Terminals gave us new content to work with. While the narration provided by Agent Locke gives us some rough estimations of the damage Thel caused, I thought it would be insightful to look at the visuals and started adding the numbers up and playing around with the math.

Sources
CAA Factbook, Halo: Reach
ONI File: Particular Justice, Terminal 3, Halo 2 Anniversary
Palace Hotel, Halo: Evolutions
Timeline, Xbox.com
Dr. Halsey's Journal, Halo: Reach

Math & Explanation
For dramatic effect in Terminal 3, as the camera pans by, the death count of each colony continually rises. Each number given is the last reliable/knowable number of the given planet. Additionally, for Reach, because we know that people did actually escape the battle, I'm going to round its death count down to give leeway room for survivors.

Planets
Estuary (89,320,839)
Mesa (219,545,727)
Greydowns (77,000,000)
Kroedis II (15,350,400)
Alluvion (336,575,292)
Bounty (200,000,000)
Reach (700,000,000)
Unknown Planet
Unknown Planet
Unknown Planet
Unknown Planet
Unknown Planet

Math
Estuary (89,320,839)
Mesa (219,545,727)
Greydowns (77,000,000)
Kroedis II (15,350,400)
Alluvion (336,575,292)
Bounty (200,000,000)
Reach (700,000,000)
+ Fleet Casualties (23,000)
——————-
1,637,815,258

Obviously, because we don't have exact numbers, we can't say with certainty that the number given is perfectly accurate. So for the sake of significant figures, I'll round down to 1.6 billion deaths.

Obviously that's a LOT of blood on a single person's hands and 1.6 billion is so large, it can be hard to fully grasp. If we apply the lens of the Covenant War as a total, we get some easier numbers.

By October 2552, we know that 23 billion casualties had been sustained by the UEG and UNSC out of the 39 total billion humans.

1.6 billion/23 billion = 0.0695
1.6 billion/39 billion = 0.0410

This means that by October, Thel was responsible for roughly 7% of the total casualties inflicted by the Covenant, and responsible for killing roughly 4% of the human population. By the war's end though, humanity's most populous planet, Earth, had sustained massive casualties. Unfortunately, specifics on the total death count at Earth is largely unknown, estimated at being in the billions.

If we look at things planet-wise we get:

11/800 = 0.0138

800 is too rough of a number though. That was humanity's colony count in 2900. By 2525, humanity could have added quite a few colonies to that number. We do know that some colonies did survive the Covenant War, so using just 800 may actually balance out in the end.

Consequently, we know that Thel is responsible for destroying roughly 1.4% of humanity's colonies.

Spoiler
Super basic math I know, but it was just a fun little project I did to spend 30 minutes.


 
Sandtrap
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Someboy should sue Thel for millions, if not, billions.


Deleted | Mythic Inconceivable!
 
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So then as far as we know has the highest Documented K/D since the firing of the Halo rings


 
Sandtrap
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So then as far as we know has the highest Documented K/D since the firing of the Halo rings

Most likely. I'd imagine that Chief and a few other IIs have a pretty high K/D though. Maybe not in the billions. But he's destroyed a lot of installations and ships, not to mention straight up gone to ground in infantry battles.

I wonder what arby's actual K/D is, in personal confrontations. Arby didn't kill those billions by hand in personal combat. But he probably did his fare share of ground work too.


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If we're talking actual K/D on a personal level, it's easily the SPARTAN-II's.


 
Sandtrap
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If we're talking actual K/D on a personal level, it's easily the SPARTAN-II's.

I wouldn't be so sure. Take note that Thel appeared in ground combat operations even when he was a commander and entered battles personally. He waded through a lot of infantry battles when he was demoted to an Arbiter.

I'd be willing to bet that his personal kill count is pretty close.


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If we're talking actual K/D on a personal level, it's easily the SPARTAN-II's.

I wouldn't be so sure. Take note that Thel appeared in ground combat operations even when he was a commander and entered battles personally. He waded through a lot of infantry battles when he was demoted to an Arbiter.

I'd be willing to bet that his personal kill count is pretty close.
Yeah, but he's up against the guys that surf on top of Banshees and chuck football nukes at CCS-Class Battlecruisers to destroy them.


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If we're talking actual K/D on a personal level, it's easily the SPARTAN-II's.

I wouldn't be so sure. Take note that Thel appeared in ground combat operations even when he was a commander and entered battles personally. He waded through a lot of infantry battles when he was demoted to an Arbiter.

I'd be willing to bet that his personal kill count is pretty close.
Yeah, but he's up against the guys that surf on top of Banshees and chuck football nukes at CCS-Class Battlecruisers to destroy them.
This is why Halo's IP is laughing stock.


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If we're talking actual K/D on a personal level, it's easily the SPARTAN-II's.

I wouldn't be so sure. Take note that Thel appeared in ground combat operations even when he was a commander and entered battles personally. He waded through a lot of infantry battles when he was demoted to an Arbiter.

I'd be willing to bet that his personal kill count is pretty close.
Yeah, but he's up against the guys that surf on top of Banshees and chuck football nukes at CCS-Class Battlecruisers to destroy them.
This is why Halo's IP is laughing stock.
Remember the time Super Grunt took a Halo pulse, survived, and then got back up to fight a Spartan Prophet?


 
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Goodness gracious, great balls of lightning!
He'll probably be Verbatim's favorite Halo character then


 
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He'll probably be Verbatim's favorite Halo character then

That would technically be Iso Didact since he personally fired the Halo Array and killed every living thing in the Milky Way.


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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.


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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.


 
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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.

Even less so of those that can do both ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


 
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This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.
I think you mean in to.


 
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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.
I think you mean in to.

I can't wait for the porn singularity.

It'll just be videos of every sexual act imaginable happening all together at the same time on every single object or entity, real or imaginary.

It'll just be white noise that induces orgasm on contact.


 
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This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.
I think you mean in to.

I can't wait for the porn singularity.

It'll just be videos of every sexual act imaginable happening all together at the same time on every single object or entity, real or imaginary.

It'll just be white noise that induces orgasm on contact.
its the ultimate weapon


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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.
I think you mean in to.

I can't wait for the porn singularity.

It'll just be videos of every sexual act imaginable happening all together at the same time on every single object or entity, real or imaginary.

It'll just be white noise that induces orgasm on contact.

It would probably be called "white noise" anyways.


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uhhh...

- korrie


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It's funny that there are more individuals that are willing to toss together well made images of the Arbiter wanking over this type of research.
If we all put our efforts completely out of porn I think we'd scare ourselves with how far ahead we'd be as civilizations.
I think you mean in to.

I can't wait for the porn singularity.

It'll just be videos of every sexual act imaginable happening all together at the same time on every single object or entity, real or imaginary.

It'll just be white noise that induces orgasm on contact.
The porn singularity will probably be like - what, a few years after the AI singularity? Cause we all know it'll be the AI making the white noise.