User blog comment:Cackling Shadow/How long have they REALLY been here?/@comment-5656020-20130114063428

Ok folks, I'm kinda running low on ammo for the Reach being active here since well before episode 1, but as Reg pointed out below (BIG thank you to Reg), that doesn't mean they weren't here INactive. The fleet could have been in hiding at the bottom since the point in time where the Blue Beetle scarab was put on earth, and if that's the case then I'm still thinking old Vandal and maybe Klarion could have run into the Reach way back when.

If it were me doing the Reach's prep work, I would definitely drop a fleet of nice hightech warships into a well hidden area on the target world if I had one handy as an arsenal for when the invasion was ready to proceed. It would save the trouble of transporting a fleet across ever how far in possibly less friendly times, it would make the fleet impossible to detect with deep space monitoring because the fleet would already be planetside, and with possibly inorganic beings such as the Reach, it would be far easier to put an army into stasis to await the orders than risk detection bringing them on world right before the invasion. It's the ultimate Peek-a-boo Sucker Punch!

Also, in the event the Reach were completely defeated across the galaxy and that fleet were still undiscovered, there could be something built into the tech of the fleet to bring it back on line after ever how many millenia of inactivity to restart the Reach, in which case it could possibly the job of the On-Mode Infiltrator scarab to reactivate the fleet, but in the event the fleet does not need to be activated prior to its deadline, a small ship or broadcast could easily be sent to extend the dealine another ever how long. That's how I'd do it.

And because I know somebody's going to bring it up, yes the ships in the fleet at the bottom of the ocean do bear a resemblance to the Ambassador's. To that I would like to say that Blue Beetle's scarab hit ground who knows how long ago, and it's apparently still fairly cutting edge with the Reach.

Of course, as stated in the premise of this article, I could just be chasing that most incredibly elusive of birds, the infamous and so rare as to be bloody near legendary...wild goose. XD