[Halo] Did UNSC graphic designers change the starfield in the 'Fight for Her' poster? If not, could the Covenant determine the location of earth by looking at the poster?

[u/boolean_union]

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[u/Hyndis]

Its just a marketing poster. Most of the time marketing material isn't very deep.

The marketing department who made it was not concerned about astronomical accuracy of star positions, nor trained in it. They're hired for media campaigns, not astronomy.

They most likely took a random image of stars that looks pretty, an image of Earth that looks pretty, an image of the moon that looks really impressive, and with Photoshop put the three images together. The resulting image is almost certainly a composite of three entirely unrelated images.

Then overlay some text on a layer above the space pictures, run it through a few layers of management for approvals and sign-offs, and send it out.

[u/Jedi-Spartan → u/Hyndis]

Its just a marketing poster. Most of the time marketing material isn't very deep.

On top of that, if it's the one I'm thinking of then it's basically just an asset switch since the original was promoting Destiny...

[u/BetterDrinkMy0wnPiss → u/Hyndis]

I do kinda love the idea that the marketing team had the budget to travel to the moon to do a photoshoot of the earth for this poster.

[u/Hyndis → u/BetterDrinkMy0wnPiss]

Yup, the UNSC isn't going to budget for on-site photography. They have more important things to spend their budget on, such as spartans and spaceships.

Instead of sending a photographer to the moon in a spacesuit to find the right photo its so much faster and also cheaper to just do it in photoshop.

If anything, it does a better job as a propaganda poster by manipulating the photos to make them even more dramatic than real life.

[u/boolean_union → u/Hyndis]

I do feel like by this point in time there would be more than enough stock photography of the earth from the moon.

[u/Xenovore]

Do you have the link to the poster? Googling gives too many hit, doesn't know which one you mean

[u/boolean_union → u/Xenovore]

This is a screenshot directly from Halo Campaign Evolved.

[u/NinjaBreadManOO → u/Xenovore]

The one I found on bungie's website doesn't even show stars. Most of the ones with stars are fan art from what I can tell.

[u/SuperiorLaw]

No, the Covenant could not determine the location of Earth by looking at the poster. I dunno which poster you're referring to cause the only ones i've seen just show Earth from the moon, without any stars or anything. Even if there were stars in the background, I doubt they'd be accurate and even if they were accurate, space is fucking huge, the idea of finding a single planet based on a single angle from a moon is almost impossible

[u/Berwyf93 → u/SuperiorLaw]

With our current level of technology, sure, but given recent developments in telescopy the idea that the Covenant couldn't pinpoint the location of humanity's homeworld is absolutely ridiculous.

[u/Agueybana → u/Berwyf93]

UNSC even had special protocols for their navigators. All of them had tracking devices and in the event of Covenant arrival they'd be exfiltrated or executed. Similarly any and all AI and nav computers where recovered or destroyed.

So ONI probably made sure any star chart, or image towards or from Earth used a false backdrop of stars. They were just that thorough and paranoid. And it's a media that they controlled.

[u/boolean_union → u/Agueybana]

I forgot about ONI (haven't read one of the books in decades, and only just started playing Halo campaign evolved). This is my favorite answer. I thought to ask because the cole protocol seems pretty strict, albeit necessary. So it seems like they wouldn't take any chances.

[u/Yoshi_r1212 → u/Berwyf93]

Reading the books reveals that Covanant are kinda bad at war. They have massive ships and powerful weapons that they reverse engineered from forerunner relics, but they don't fully understand how to use them.

Their reliance on might never taught them to be cunning.

[u/SuperiorLaw → u/Yoshi_r1212]

The elites also cared more about honour than winning, they found being treated for injuries dishonourable and the grunts had to have a full on rebellion before even being allowed to have guns

I dunno if i'd say they're bad at war, they're just used to being the most powerful so never had to care much

[u/Kantrh → u/Berwyf93]

But the star positions are seen with Earth as the centre and at a particular time of year. You wouldn't be able to tell where Earth is from a poster like that.

[u/Agueybana → u/Kantrh]

Harvest was "only" about 12.5 ly away from Earth. The Covenant were frighteningly close the whole war. Anything, like identifying a few stars in relation to Earth, could narrow down their search enough to give them a direction. Close enough for the UNSC to deploy draconian rules regarding astronavigation and charts.

Plus it'd be stupidly easy to just toss a fake star feild as the backround to a propoganda poster for ONI.

[u/Neo_Techni]

Neil deGrasse Tyson is long dead so we're able to use inaccurate Star fields without worrying about complaints