How Did the Fall of Reach Happen?: The Fall
The beginning of Reach’s glassing heralded the end of the planet as the UNSC knew it. Remaining military forces scrambled to evacuate civilians off world—only to be largely picked off as even more Covenant vessels entered the Epsilon Eridani system thanks to the weakening of the UNSC’s defense systems.
The UNSC frigate Pillar of Autumn—already carrying an evacuated Master Chief, one of the few surviving Spartans after the conflict—was tasked with coming to what remained of the planet’s surface by the founder of the Spartan-II program, Dr. Catherine Halsey (played in the games by Jen Taylor, and the Halo TV series by Natascha McElhone), in order to recover a copy of Halsey’s AI construct Cortana carrying vital information that could turn the tide of the war. Pillar of Autumn managed to successfully evacuate Cortana and enter FTL away from Reach.
Just over a month after their presence was revealed on Reach, on August 30, 2552, the Covenant Fleet began bombarding the entire surface of the world as the surviving UNSC fleet retreated from the system, turning it almost entirely to glass.
