" 

 :::: The situation on Reach was perilous, but there was no indication to the alien fleet that such a ship existed in the Reach orbital shipyards (from John and Keyes'point of view) and since the battle was a defeat, and the MAC power source on the planet was destroyed anyway, Captain Keyes or any of the other 100 UNSC commanders could have nuked the docking ring and prevented any Covenant attack when defeat (and the destruction of the private property by the Covenant) was clear. 

 :::: You missed the main idea I was putting forth in the use of the military for domestic affairs. It is obvious in what we know about the Halo universe (only ONI has small-ish slipspace vessels, military ships cost as much as experimental armor) that intergalactic travel in the Halo universe is reserved for the elite or those who fight against the elite (dis-enfranchized citizens that you classify as rebels). No matter the strength or ""entrenchment"" of a rebellion, the military is unsuited for fighting against its own citizenry. It has nothing to do with weapons, equipment, and that sort of stuff (police forces can be equiped with automatic weapons and armor SUPERIOR to the military in the United States, for example), it involves a key principle of democracy: you cannot wage war against your own people. The western tradition (and the west is obviously the strongest influence in the UNSC government) has learned this lesson time and time again from the Roman Civil Wars to the American Civil War. After the Civil War President Grant established DOMESTIC policing agencies (such as the secret service, federal marshalls) because the Civil War and Reconstructioned clearly demonstrated that GI Joe is not the man you want protecting civil liberties in the streets of Savannah. The entrenched Eridanus rebellion is not some sort of foreign human splinter/terrorist organization  they are disenfranchized citizens who are shownt to be fed up with inner colony exploitation. Earthlings in iLoveBees are shown to hold colonists  even inner-colonists in perjorative terms quite often, which is key evidence. The very fact that the destruction of billions of lives and colonies is in itself proof that the UNSC and its people do not care about anything but Earth. Earth gets hundreds of MAC defense cannons while Sigma Octanus gets a DESTROYER? Honestly, besides ""homeworld"" sentiment (which, by the way closely parallels French, British, German, and American imperial arrogance in the early 20th century that led to World War I), what is so special about Earth that it is given more defense than any other world? Obviously, it is the seat of power for the UNSC, and there's your answer: The few control the many and are more than willing to throw billions into fire to stay safe and ""hidden"" by the Cole Protocol's veil.  

 ::::I realize I'm not going to convince you any of this based on your pre-conceived notions peptuck, and I doubt myself that a man with a chemistry degree writing a science-fiction novel for a videogame company really put that much thought into the whole thing, but I really think if you take a look (even on wikipedia) at some Niche, Hobbes, Locke, Paine (especially), and even Byron... along with a little look at the life of J Edgar Hoover, Nixon, and Bush Sr. you'll be able to see how bleak the status of democracy and liberty in the UNSC is. I honestly see it as quite a machiavellian society... especially when looking at how the merit's of soldiers and, a human beings NATURAL RIGHTS are judged BY OTHER HUMANS on the basis of genetics. It's so painfully similar to the actions of European and American governments in the early twentith century, and I am not just talking about the Nazis. I'm talking about the less-than-20-year total colonation of Africa by the European powers ""empire for empire's sake"" because the Africans were considered lesser people who needed to be shown the light by the west. Or the American theft of the entire west from native americans, who were also ""primatives"". The total blanketing of oriental culture as this Charlie Chan, Dr. Fu Manchu society where all the women were ""whores with hearts of gold"". The UNSC is extremely arrogant in its science and its ""post-post modern"" attitude perfectly mimicks the modern attitude (not contemporary  modern period stretches from the death of queen victoria roughly to the end of the second world war  when ""smart"" people realized Slavs, Chinks, and Jews were just as capable human beings as Aryans and Anglos) 

 :::: I encourage other readers to take part in this discussion, or even to post this to HSP (the sort of ""scholarly journal"" of halo) or the forums on HBO for further extrapolation. I would really insist though, that at the very least the wikipedia article, in its introduction state something to the effect of ""the unsc is great, wonderful blah blah blah [...] although the status of democracy, egalitarianism, and