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A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command by witelancer
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A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter One: Beginnings
Date: 12 December 2003, 6:27 PM
Author's note: Technically, this is not fanfic. However, since Finn said he couldn't find a place to post this on HSP, I'm posting it here. This document IS compiled ONLY from official sources, so if you're looking for a historical setting for a fanfic, it's a good place to start, if you ask me.
Chapter One: Beginnings
(Author's Note: It is assumed that since Microsoft's official timeline for Halo begins in around 2160, there are no other official sources dating to this period. One must assume that the "current" world structure (as of the early 2000's) would eventually take root and develop into the greatly expanded role the United Nations plays in the Halo universe. But, in consideration of the fact that the United Nations today plays an extraordinarily limited role, the reader must therefore conclude that by 2160, the United Nations would have greatly extended its power over the world.)
Part One: The rise of the United Nations through Conflict
Thus, it is necessary to begin with a history of the UN, since it does eventually develop into the United Nations Space Command, the focus of this work. The United Nations was conceived at the Yalta conference, in February 1945. Leaders of the ancient United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were in conference to decide the fate of Germany and to ensure that the Second World War would end in world peace—a naïve vision of the future. As of 1950, the UN Charter was signed in San Francisco, California [a province of the ancient United States]. The organization grew greatly in size throughout the remainder of the 20th and 21st centuries, with almost every nation becoming a member state.
Originally designed as a entity for world peace and unity, over time, the United Nations grasped the reins of almost every nation on Earth, guiding most of the war-torn planet to peace and prosperity. However, a few dissenters remained, and these reticent factions would cause the United Nations great headaches and growing pains in the future, for their ability to confound the world leadership was amazing for such small countries.
Since official sources do not document the advent of man's first interplanetary space flight, it is unknown as to when the United Nations first colonized the Sol System. However, since by 2160 there were brushfire wars erupting on Mars and the Jovian Moons, it is assumed that the forces of individual nations as well as the United Nations world government began to colonize planets by the late 21st or early 22nd century.
The official Microsoft timeline has its first significant event in 2160, when dissident nations and conflicting desires of national governments launched the Sol system into chaos. Overpopulation and political unrest caused by a disjointed society and a lack of population control resulted in much tension on the planet. Two distinct factions, each representing a different end of the political continuum, became powerful and would eventually cause the UN great turmoil during the period of time known simply as the "Early Conflicts".
The "Koslovics", as they were called, were supporters of a neo-communist hard-liner Vladimir Koslov, a renegade dissident and political firebrand. Their goals included elimination of the global free-market economy and the elimination of corporate and capitalistic influence. Since the Koslovics could not seize control of Earth without inciting the wrath of many countries (remember that the UN does not yet exist as a governing entity), they focused on achieving these goals in orbital facilities and offworld colonies, presumably owned by Russia [an ancient state] or another "Communist" country. However, the extreme-left wing policies of the Koslovics would not only cause more tension, but it would bring a rival political faction into the fray.
The "Frieden" [German for peace] movement was a neo-Fascist movement, and it began on the Jovian Moon colonies. During the early period of the Sol system's colonization, powerful corporations from the United German Republics (Bohemia, Moravia, and Prussia) colonized these moons in an effort to mine raw materials. The Friedens were fervent opponents of the Koslovics, seeing as how the leftist movement managed to disrupt production with their "workers' crusades. Their name (peace) was a reminder that they believed that peace was only possible with complete independence from Earth and UN, and a crushing of those so-called "oppressors".
Beginning in March 2160, the Jovian Moons Campaign began with Frieden attacks on United Nations Colonial Advisors (UNCA) base on Io. Following the surprise attack, the disunited national governments on Earth, who sponsored numerous colonies in the Sol System, began to fight "proxy wars" reminiscent of the early 21st century throughout the Sol System. The battles between the Frieden forces and the UNCA would continue for three months, with the insurrection eventually being quashed by the superior numbers of the UNCA, not to mention the better supplies they received.
Two years later, in 2162, the "Rain-Forest Wars", as they are known today, began with a Koslovic attack on Frieden forces in South America. This conflict earned its name for the grueling jungle battles between the leftist radicals, right-wing reactionaries, and the United Nations, which was at this time desperately reeling from the insubordination of individual governments. By December 2163, as the Rain Forest wars wound down and UN forces eventually assumed control of the planet, a Martian conflict began, with stunning tactical maneuvers on the horizon.
A Koslovic buildup at the Argrye Planitia on the surface of Mars was utterly destroyed by an extra-terrestrial deployment of Marine forces, using lightning strikes and other innovative interplanetary striking measures. The attack was a great success and would continue to shape UNSC military doctrine for years to come—even today, UNSC ships do not travel without Marine contingents. The new military doctrine involved using large numbers of Marines for ground action as well as ship-to-ship boarding action.
Finally, in 2164, a greatly rejuvenated UN military force was able to greatly enlarge itself from the morale boost after the Martian campaigns. The propaganda spread by the UN, which was slowly increasing its power base, caused hundreds of thousands of volunteers to join the newly founded United Nations Space Command, the armed forces of the UN in space. UN forces not only crushed the remnants of the Koslovics and Friedens in South America, Germany, and the former Soviet Union, but they continued to strike the dissidents throughout the Sol system, culminating in their final defeat in 2170, when the United Nations officially became a world government, with the United Nations Space Command as its military wing.
Part Two: So... Now what?
Although the United Nations Space Command had won the brushfire wars of the 2160s, a new threat loomed on the horizon, one that couldn't be beaten with military force. The environmental fallout from the Rain Forest Wars, as well as the ever-increasing population of planet Earth, made the United Nations a very unstable world government. The economy faltered as the Earth exceeded its population capacity. The UN searched desperately for a solution, even sending millions of people to Mars and other planets that were in-system. The immense UNSC fleet sat motionless in vacuum, with no enemy to fight. The world grew restless.
It was not until 2291 that a viable long-term solution was found, but in the meantime, the UN attempted to cure the problems of world overpopulation and massive famines with aggressive replanting campaigns and economic recovery plans, almost all of which faltered and stalled, leaving the Earth in worse shape than before.
However, a glimmer of hope showed in the efforts of Dr. Shaw and Dr. Fujikawa, two American and Japanese scientists that shaped the course of human history by developing the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. This amazing invention, the brainchild of researchers, quantum physicists, nuclear technicians, and advanced mathematicians, stretched the limits of human science to come up with an interstellar drive—one that would propel ships into "Slipspace", a quasi-dimension that not only bends the laws of physics, but alters time and reality. FTL (faster-than-light) travel, however, was not instantaneous, but it did indeed reduce flight times between distant stars by factors too large to measure.
The Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine worked by creating a resonance bubble around a target starship. The ship would enter the "slipstream" by engaging its SFTE, and then it would continue to travel in this alternate domain until a given time, at which the ship would disengage its FTL drives and use its sublight drives, usually powered by a standard Mark One fusion reactor. However, "Slipspace" often has eddies and currents in it, and it was very difficult to come up with a practical way to use the SFTE. Applications for the quantum technology were finally found in the colonization efforts in progress by the UNSC and the UN itself.
Colony ships began to appear in 2310, and there was no shortage of volunteers—conditions on Earth were terrible. In order to better utilize the standing fleets, the UNSC armada was refitted with SFTE, which allowed them to escort the colony ships to distant stars. However, these early colonization efforts would take not only time but also money to coordinate. It would take fifty-two years for a colony ship to be launched, and in that amount of time, conditions on Earth were reaching their lowest point ever, as a population of more than thirty billion ravaged the Earth for resources.
Finally, by 2362, the Odyssey, the first ship in the line of colony ships was ready. The UNSC reached for the edge of another solar system—and found a handhold.
A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter Two: The Colonial Period
Date: 12 December 2003, 6:31 PM
Author's Pre-Piece Note: This is not fanfic, technically. I wrote this to clear up the Halo backstory, and to show people what the UNSC really is, since i'm sick and tired of poorly based fanfics on this site. If you're looking to write a fanfic with the UNSC involved in it, I'd reccomend reading this beforehand so that you know what forms the UNSC. That's all.
Chapter Two: The Colonial Period
(Author's note: the Microsoft timeline gets very spotty throughout this period. I have only speculated on what I feel is a logical flow of time. I have not added any characters or significant events.)
Part One: The Inner Colonies are founded (2362-2390)
The launch of the Odyssey in 2362 enabled the UNSC to greatly expand the dominion of Earth. Thousands of volunteers signed up to emigrate to the Colonies, but only the best and brightest civilians were selected for the colonization effort. Aside from being a logical thing to do with any sort of colonization, the practice also resulted in a sort of elite culture in the Inner Colonies, as the colonists there consider themselves to be the most culturally advanced people in the UNSC.
Also, the colonization of the Inner Colonies (beginning with Reach) allowed for the militarization of human culture. The UNSC assigned escort vessels and hundreds of military personnel to each colony in an effort to disperse the gigantic and bloated UNSC fleet, which would now be kept busy by assisting the newly founded Colonial Administration Authority (CAA) in developing the new worlds. Terraforming equipment quickly was developed and shipped to the new colonies, allowing the colonists to create habitable planets as they pleased. Eventually, it was even considered "normal" to have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and a climate close to that of Earth, thanks to the widespread terraforming enacted by the CAA and UNSC.
The effort to colonize the "Inner Colonies", as they're now called, was not only a morale boost to the entire UNSC and all of Earth's population, but also enabled the UNSC to disperse its fleet and create an interstellar economy. Freighters like the Laden (an independent freighter seized by the Spartans in TfoR) soon be came common as the new colonies developed a economic system that continued to fuel more colonization efforts.
In addition to the expansion of UNSC territory, the expansion era also allowed for the development of new technologies and a refinement of others. The SFTE was painstakingly re-developed, allowing for more accurate Slipspace jumps (although the properties of Slipstream space still made plotting coordinated military attacks a headache). Some time during this period of time, the Archer missile series and the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon (standard shipboard armament for UNSC ships nowadays) were developed.
As the UNSC continued to expand, older colonies began to become political and economic strongholds. Reach, for example, built up its titanium industry, supplying the shipyards in the Sol system with valuable titanium used in UNSC vessels' armor plating. By 2390, a mere 28 years after the launch of the Odyssey, aggressive colonization efforts by the UNSC and CAA resulted in 210 human-controlled worlds. Although not all of these colonies were completely terraformed, the initial population burdens imposed upon Earth were now lifted as colonists continued to expand the human empire.
Now, the colonies founded from 2390 onwards are considered the "Outer colonies", for the Orion Arm of our galaxy was becoming less and less of a challenge to colonize for the UNSC.
Part Two: The Founding of the Outer Colonies (2390-2525)
The founding of the outer colonies began in about 2390, as the UNSC urged more and more colonization. Self-seeking entrepeneurs and rejects of the Inner Colonies' elitist society began to expand outwards into the Orion Arm, carving out wide swaths of colonized territory. Also, the Inner Colony worlds became more stable. Rather than supply raw materials to Earth, and Earth send high-level technology to them, the Inner Colonies soon became economic bastions of their own, trading in high-level technology and creating military bases along the way.
For example, Reach, the fourth planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, became the primary naval facility of the UNSC, and also a training ground for the Marine Corps. It produced more ships than any other shipyard in the UNSC, including the Reyes-McLees shipyard built in 2510 over Mars.
By 2490, just a century after the birth of the Outer Colonies, the UNSC controlled over 800 worlds in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, from tiny worlds like Harvest and Eridanus to the monstrous industrial colony of Reach and Earth itself. As the UNSC expanded, however, there was potential for disunity and fragmentation.
In 2494, a rebellion in the Eridanus system reached its peak. Two years after the formation of the insurgent movement, a UNSC fleet attacked the insurrectionists' base, losing four destroyers in a pitched space battle. Usually, these little brushfire wars, although bloody, made little to no significant impact in the UNSC's efforts to colonize the rest of the galaxy, as the insurgents were no match for the combined power of the UNSC fleet, which by this time was nearing the present-day standard of efficiency and firepower.
The Eridanus system, however, proved to be a hotbed of insurrection and rebellion. A traitorous UNSC officer, Colonel Robert Watts, sponsored a rebellion, and was only stopped through Operation TREBUCHET in 2513. His fleet destroyed, Watts escaped into the Eridanus system's asteroid belt, licking his wounds and waiting for another chance to strike at the UNSC.
And just four years later, in 2517, the most ambitious project in the history of the UNSC—Project SPARTAN-II, began when Dr. Catherine Halsey began to abduct children from the Outer Colonies(More about Project SPARTAN-II can be found in Chapter Three). Altogether, as the year 2525 approached, things were looking up for the UNSC—an empire of over 800 worlds was under their control, their military was well-dispersed and powerful, and the population worries of the 22nd and 23rd centuries were a thing of the past. But this future was to be dashed when on April 20, 2525, contact was lost with Harvest, an outer colony.
A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter Three
Date: 14 December 2003, 7:18 PM
Chapter Three: The SPARTAN II Program
Part One: The Selection and the Early Years
The brushfire conflicts of the late 25th century did not go unnoticed. The Office of Naval Intelligence, Section Three, noticed that the power of the UNSC's mighty space fleet was too powerful and reliant on brute force to settle minor conflicts, and that the starships used by the UNSC were too valuable to risk in fighting guerrilla actions. Thus, in reaction to this new threat posed by insurgents, rebels, and pirates, the UNSC began work on devising a solution.
In association with the Colonial Military Administration (CMA), Project ORION began in 2491. This research project is kept obscure by ONI blackouts and the lack of official sources, but one can only surmise that the results of ORION was to produce the SPARTAN program. There were several people involved in the SPARTAN program itself, but Dr. Catherine Halsey was the most prominent of them all.
Dr. Catherine Halsey, a prominent ONI researcher, began the SPARTAN-I program at an unknown date. The SPARTAN program was the UNSC's response to the rebel incursions of the early 2500's, an era in which lawlessness pervaded many of the Outer Colonies. Official sources do not document either the beginning or the end of the SPARTAN-I program. All one could do is realize that it was a success, or at least showed progress, because the selection process for the SPARTAN II project began in 2517.
On August 17, 2517, Halsey visited the Eridanus Secundus system, in search of John, a six year old boy—and a SPARTAN candidate. She administered a simple test—and the boy passed. John's induction into the SPARTAN program was the first of seventy-five tests. ONI only had funding for half of the 150-candidate field that Dr. Halsey selected. Throughout the rest of 2517, Halsey tested her juvenile candidates, with the testing culminating in the selection of seventy-five six-year old candidates.
These seventy-five children became the targets of an ONI mass kidnapping. They were stolen from their homes, injected with tranquilizers, and then were flash-cloned, leaving their parents with pale copies of their original children. The candidates were then taken to the REACH military facility. Upon arrival on September 23, 2517, the children were officially conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program. Their reaction was not typical of many six-year olds taken from their homes—nearly all of the SPARTANS were able to cope with their newfound captors. The extensive training program began the next day.
The SPARTAN trainees were put through courses of morning calisthenics, advanced academic courses, and many other extensive educational programs for the first two years of their training. By 2519, the eight-year old SPARTAN trainees were able to successfully outwit the trainers under the command of Chief Petty Officer Mendez, their father figure. JOHN-117, the Spartan who would later become known as the "Master Chief" achieved the rank of Squad Leader on this mission by heroically appropriating a Pelican dropship. Throughout the next eight years, the Spartan trainees continued to advance in their education and training, becoming not only fearsome fighters but also skilled and intelligent officers.
Finally, on March 9, 2525, eight years after the beginning of the program, Dr. Halsey put the next phase of project SPARTAN-II into action. Using advanced techniques and technology, Halsey installed bone grafts, neuromuscular enhancements, ocular implants, and many other experimental cybernetic upgrades onto the Spartans' bodies. The Spartans did not fare well, with thirty-one of the trainees dying from complications from their surgery. Twelve others were too severely damaged by the implants to be of any use militarily. They were re-assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence, where they made many strides in quantum physics research(for example, Fhajad-034 made a discovery that helped Captain Jacob Keyes save Sigma Octanus).
Thus, the Spartans emerged from their training program with not only new bodies, but sharp minds that would help them fight against their enemies.
Part Two: MJOLNIR and the Covenant
The insurgency in the Eridanus system in 2513 did not go unnoticed by the UNSC. Colonel Robert Watts, a prominent Naval officer, had defected to the side of the rebels and was now their de facto leader, running a secret base concealed in the side of an asteroid. On September 12, 2525, the Spartans were assigned their first real combat mission from the UNSC destroyer Pioneer. Their objective was to abduct Watts from the asteroid base, allowing the UNSC to interrogate him. The mission went off without a hitch, showing the Spartans' near-invincibility in ground combat.
On November 2, 2525, Chief Petty Officer Mendez left the SPARTAN-II program. Also, on this day the Spartans were introduced to their new enemy—the Covenant. They were briefed on the events that had taken place during 2525—the destruction of Harvest.
As time passed, the missions of the Spartans brought them closer and closer to Chi Ceti 4 and the Damascus testing facility. The Commonwealth, a UNSC frigate, ferried the Spartans and Halsey to Chi Ceti 4, where they came upon an unexpected contact: a Covenant frigate. As Captain Wallace of the Commonwealth held the Covenant off in orbit, Halsey led the Spartans down to the surface of Chi Ceti 4, where they were outfitted with the fruits of Halsey's labors—the MJOLNIR armor. MJOLNIR was a culmination of many hard years of work, giving the Spartans the best armor that the UNSC could afford—and the armor would save all of their lives. It was based off the early exoskeleton research of the UNSC, but it greatly improved upon the technology used for those weapons—the exoskeletons were inefficient and greatly wasteful of broadcast power. MJOLNIR rectified these shortfalls and improved upon the exoskeleton concept.
The Commonwealth was crippled by the Covenant ship's plasma weaponry, but John-117, Samuel-034, and Kelly-087 stopped the Covenant ship by planting warheads in the ship's reactor. The Spartans took their first combat casualty in this action; Samuel-034 sacrificed himself in order to destroy the Covenant ship. The rest of the Spartans and Dr. Halsey escaped to parts unknown.
With their new MJOLNIR armor and a new enemy to fight, the Spartans leapt into furious battle, slaughtering the Covenant in ground combat. However, no matter how many Covenant they killed on the ground, the Spartans never made a significant difference in space battles—so the Covenant continued their inexorable advance.
Twenty-five years of the Human-Covenant War passed (see Chapter Four), and the Spartans continued their vicious attacks against Covenant ground forces. On August 27, 2552, the Spartans were gathered on Reach, where they received their newest mission orders—to capture a Covenant ship and to capture a Prophet. The mission was considered high-risk enough that the UNSC HighCom did not order the Spartans on the mission, but rather asked for volunteers.
However brave and noble the mission plan was, the future was shattered when the Covenant attacked Reach. The mission was scrubbed in favor of defending Reach—the Spartans split into two groups. Blue Team, led by John, was assigned to a space operation to enforce the Cole Protocol (once again see Chapter Four), while Red Team was assigned to defend the broadcast power generators on Reach's surface. When Reach later fell, Red Team was stuck on the planet, while John, the only survivor of Blue Team, went to Halo-04, where he discovered the Flood and the Forerunners, bringing Cortana along with him. He later returned to Reach with a captured Covenant ship and the survivors of Halo's detonation.
In the aftermath of the battle for Reach, and the incidents on Halo, the Spartans were reunited, claiming a Forerunner artifact and destroying the Covenant space station Unyielding Hierophant. Many Spartans died along the way—by the end of September 2552, there were only four Spartans left—John, Linda, Will, and Fred. Kelly-087 was kidnapped by Dr. Halsey. Her fate is unknown at this time.
The Spartans returned to Earth, knowing that the Covenant hammer was about to fall, and that they would have to sacrifice everything for the good of humanity. The United Nations Space Command looked to the stars, waiting for the first signs of the inevitable.
A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter Four: The Human-Covenant War
Date: 28 December 2003, 12:01 AM
Chapter Four: The Human-Covenant War
Part One: The Destruction of Harvest and the Outer Colonies
On February 3, 2525, contact was lost with the outer colony of Harvest. The normally peaceful Outer Colony world of three million was known for being one of the most productive colonies under the UNSC's banner. On April 20, 2525, the scout ship Argo was dispatched from Reach by the Colonial Military Administration to discover the conditions on Harvest and to ascertain the reason for the communications failure.
The Argo never returned. Fearing the worst, the Colonial Military Administration sent a battlegroup of three ships—the Vostok, Arabia, and Heracles. Led by Captain Veredi of the Heracles, the task force was more than a match for any pirate group—but the enemy that awaited them was far more powerful than any pirate militia. Several weeks later, the Heracles returned to Reach, heavily damaged and having taken considerable amounts of casualties. The tale Captain Veredi would tell would be a tale of tragedy—and a tale that would lead the UNSC to its doom.
Upon arrival in the Harvest system, the UNSC battlegroup had found an alien warship in orbit. In addition, the planet had been thoroughly "glassed", or destroyed from orbit. Before Veredi or anyone else in the battlegroup could initiate one of the UNSC's standard first-contact scenarios (which called for cautious attempts at communications), the alien ship transmitted a message:
Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instrument.
Then, the alien warship opened fire, destroying the Vostok and Arabia and killing all hands on board the two ships. The aliens used weapons far more technologically advanced than the UNSC—guided plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers. The alien warship, protected by otherworldly energy shields, utterly devastated the battlegroup, heavily damaging the Heracles. Veredi ordered the ship to return to Reach; however, given the ship's damaged state, it took several weeks for the Heracles to return.
Upon hearing of the tragic tale of Harvest, Vice Admiral Preston Cole was ordered to retake the Harvest system. On November 1, the entire United Nations Space Command went to full alert. The largest fleet in the UNSC's history was assembled under Cole's command. During November 2552, the UNSC fleet approached Harvest. On November 2, 2552, the SPARTANS were briefed on this new threat to the UNSC. Very few of the SPARTANS realized that the rest of the UNSC was virtually uninformed of this new threat.
In order to avoid morale problems at home, the UNSC had severely censored the news coming out of the Harvest system. The fact that the Spartans—a very highly ranked group of individuals within the UNSC military—only heard about this new threat about seven months after its emergence is a testament to the secrecy with which the UNSC fought against the Covenant.
Finally, on December 1, 2531, Cole's fleet of over one hundred advanced UNSC battleships was able to defeat the aliens in orbit. The cost of this battle was grievous—the aliens were outnumbered three to one, but their kill ratio doubled that of the UNSC ships. Although the UNSC won this first battle, by the time the dust had settled, several outlying colonies—Eridanus Secundus, for example, had been attacked by the aliens. Ground engagements began on the embattled Outer Colonies while CMA orbital forces attempted to hold the aliens off. However, the CMA's outdated ships were no match for the highly advanced weapons and the protective shields of the aliens.
When Cole returned to Earth, he was promptly promoted to Admiral. He was assigned to protect the Outer Colonies—but it was a futile struggle. Sometime during the engagements in the Outer Colonies, the alien enemy was given a name—the Covenant. Official sources differ on the origin of the name, but it appears that either a prisoner taken on the ground or a transmission from the cruiser that attacked Harvest identified the aliens as the Covenant.
The threat was real and even had a name—but the citizens of the UNSC had no idea of how fierce the fighting was. The civilian population of the Outer Colonies was caught unawares as the Covenant war machine utterly consumed planets and left them scorched wastelands. The UNSC Marines could hold their own in ground combat—as was proven many times—but the fleet was no match for the Covenant's plasma torpedoes and pulse lasers. Time and time again, UNSC Marines would win ground engagements only to die fruitlessly as the Covenant glassed the planet from orbit.
The Covenant continued to slaughter the citizens of the UNSC. When UNSC forces were in position to defend their colonies, they were easily dispatched from orbit. Human casualties mounted heavily—while the Covenant often emerged unscathed. Cole led his fleet in a valiant struggle that culminated in a grand last stand around an unknown star system. The battle was memorialized in a painting that now hangs in a UNSC facility in Australia [a landmass on Earth].
Before the Admiral's demise, however, he established the Cole Protocol, designed to safeguard Earth from the Covenant (the full text of the Cole Protocol can be found in Appendix A). The principles of the Cole Protocol were simple: to prevent the Covenant from learning the location of Earth. To attain this goal, Cole set down a handful of military regulations, with a penalty of treason. Under the Protocol, when UNSC forces are forced to withdraw from a system, they must not travel on an Earth-bound vector, even if this means that a captain must order his ship to perform a blind jump. If a blind jump is not possible or if there is an imminent chance of capture by Covenant forces, UNSC vessels must self-destruct.
The Protocol also insured the electronic safety of Earth's navigational coordinates. Upon contact with Covenant forces, all ships must wipe their memory banks with triple-checked viral data scavengers—this would protect from Covenant hackers. UNSC vessels' artificial intelligence constructs (AI) would have to be destroyed either electronically or physically in extreme situations. As a whole, the Cole Protocol prevented the Covenant from learning the location of Earth for many years, safeguarding the vast majority of the human race.
Part Two: The Inner Colonies, Reach, and Halo
With the death of Cole at his last stand, Admiral Michael Stanforth became the Sector Three commander of the UNSC forces. Sector Three is assumed to include the Reach, Jericho, and Tantalus systems. Stanforth would wage the rest of the Human-Covenant War, winning the battle of Sigma Octanus and suffering countless defeats, most notably at Reach.
In 2535, with the fall of Jericho VII, the siege of the Inner Colonies began. The Outer Colonies had been utterly devastated by Covenant assaults—and now, Covenant forces swarmed into the well-defended Inner Colonies region. The UNSC reacted by pulling its Marathon-class cruisers—the most valuable warships in the fleet save for supercarriers—out of the forward areas and into more protected regions such as Reach, where three of the powerful ships were stationed. The UNSC also stepped up enforcement of the Cole Protocol, harshly punishing violators and keeping the valuable coordinates away from the Covenant.
The duplicity of the UNSC's ONI continued as more and more of the UNSC's citizens were duped into thinking that the UNSC was actually winning the war—propaganda flooded official information outlets. As more and more of the Colonies were ruthlessly eliminated by the Covenant, the setup continued to be very difficult to hide from the general population. Survivors of the Outer Colonies as well as many Inner Colony worlds that had been glassed told their tragic tales.
Eventually, the UNSC began to fight two battles at once—one against the enemy in space and one against the rapidly collapsing rank-and-file society on the surface of Earth. As the stakes mounted for the UNSC, it became increasingly difficult to fight the Covenant as more and more of the aliens' deadly ships entered the Orion Arm from parts unknown, bolstering the numbers of the enemy's already powerful war fleet.
A glimmer of hope for the UNSC showed in ground combat. Orbital Drop Shock Troopers and the SPARTANS slaughtered the Covenant by the thousands on Jericho VII, Sigma Octanus, and hundreds of other worlds. In addition, the adoption of new innovative tactics in orbit using the UNSC's Magnetic Accelerator Cannon (basically, a gigantic ship-mounted railgun/mass driver) and its Archer missile armaments to defeat Covenant energy shields, which in the past had been a major obstacle to UNSC forces in battle. However, these innovations only resulted in three isolated victories against the Covenant.
As the war dragged on, costing millions of human lives, the UNSC became increasingly desperate. The superior spaceships of the Covenant fleet were able to easily pick off the Inner Colonies one by one, whittling the once-vast domain of the UNSC into a handful of heavily defended worlds such as Reach. Even John-117, the Spartan who would later fight the battles on Halo-04 was confident that the Covenant would never be able to take the planet. However, Reach would fall in 2552, just as the human race was swallowing its first real victory at Sigma Octanus.
The battle for Sigma Octanus initially was conducted by just five ships. The UNSC destroyer Iroquois, fresh out of the shipyards at Reach, was deployed to close-orbit protection of the valuable colony of seventeen million. When the Archimedes sensor outpost detected a large mass in Slipspace approaching the system, Commander Jacob Keyes (the selfsame man who assisted in the Spartan program), in command of the Iroquois, acted on a hunch and called in additional UNSC reinforcements. He was right—four Covenant ships appeared in-system.
While the reinforcements were on their way in-system, Keyes executed a maneuver now known as the "Keyes Loop"—the Iroquois used emergency thrusters, innovative uses for Archer missiles, and a Shiva-class nuclear missile to utterly devastate three of the four attacking ships, leaving only a defenseless carrier behind. As the carrier turned away from Sigma Octanus, Keyes acted on yet another hunch—and saved the lives of millions of citizens when he detected thirty-four dropships on an inbound course towards Cote d'Azur, the capital city of the colony.
Four dozen UNSC vessels under the command of Admiral Michael Stanforth, UNSC Sector Three commander and captain of the Leviathan, entered the Sigma Octanus system and immediately deployed one dropship with a very special cargo—Spartans. As the Spartans engaged the enemy on the ground, the UNSC fleet braced for another Covenant attack in space. Twenty Covenant ships came out of Slipspace in fighting positions and attacked the UNSC ships in orbit. The fierce battle cost both sides dearly as Stanforth used innovative new tactics with the MAC guns and the Archer missiles of the fleet to devastate the Covenant ships, while the Covenant plasma torpedoes likewise inflicted great damage upon the UNSC fleet. The Iroquois played yet another significant part in this battle when it crushed a Covenant stealth ship. Captain Keyes—promoted by Stanforth in the wake of his heroism—intercepted a stealth transmission from the surface of Sigma Octanus that would prove to be very interesting to ONI Section Three. At the end of the battle, seven Covenant ships slinked away, licking their wounds, while the UNSC fleet was whittled down to eight ships, including the Leviathan and the Iroquois.
The ground battle was won with many casualties. The initial Covenant attack had slaughtered hundreds of Marines. The arrival of the Spartans heralded a turning point in the battle and NavSpecWep (Naval Special Weapons) took control of the Marines, as the Spartans conducted a stealth operation that resulted in the recovery of an alien artifact which was of great religious significance to the Covenant as well as the destruction of ten thousand Covenant troops with a HAVOK tactical nuclear device.
All in all, the UNSC was elated with the results of this battle. Not only was it militarily significant, but it also raised the morale of the UNSC servicemen as well as the citizens of the Inner Colonies. However, this elation was short-lived. As Keyes, John-117, and Stanforth returned to Reach for debriefing by the Admiralty, the Covenant planted a tracking device on the Iroquois, giving them the location of Reach. On August 30, three days after the Spartans and Keyes had received their new mission (see Chapter Three for details); the Covenant attacked the planet. Three hundred fourteen Covenant warships were arrayed against just over one hundred fifty UNSC vessels as well as twenty "Super" MAC cannons stationed in orbit. The Covenant devastated the UNSC fleet and then used ground attacks to disable the Super MAC cannons. The battle turned into a rout, with only a few UNSC ships escaping from the Pearl Harbor-esque carnage. One of these ships was the Pillar of Autumn, which was ferrying the Spartans on their latest mission, sailing out of the system on a random course per the Cole Protocol.
However, the Spartans were not at full strength. Only two of the supercommandoes remained on the Pillar; the rest were presumed dead by Keyes. During the battle for Reach, the Spartans had been split into two teams (see Chapter Three). Blue team had successfully completed its mission, destroying the Circumference's NAV database, but Red Team had not been evacuated and was presumed dead. John-117 was the only survivor; James had been lost in space and Linda had been shot dead by an Elite. Her body was immediately put into cryo and she would later return to life, thanks to Dr. Halsey.
On September 19, 2552, the Pillar entered an unknown star system and entered orbit around Threshold and its moon Basis. At the LaGrange point between the two bodies, Keyes found a curious ring-shaped object—and a dozen Covenant battleships. Cortana, the Pillar's AI construct, successfully destroyed four of the battlecruisers before boarding parties made the Pillar too unstable to fight. Keyes transferred Cortana from the Pillar to the MJOLNIR armor that John wore. The Pillar crashed onto the ring-world, now called "Halo". John-117 rallied the ship's Marine contingent and gathered them while Major Silva (the ODST commander) and his XO took a tactically significant base located on top of a butte, which they subsequently designated "Alpha Base".
In the space of three days, John-117 and the Marines of the Pillar, as well as Keyes, became a significant thorn in the side of the Covenant. An attack on the disabled Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation resulted in the freeing of Keyes, who had been a prisoner. Halo held great significance to the Covenant, and there were thousands of the aliens swarming all over the construct. Alpha Base was attacked numerous times; each time, the ODSTs and Marines pushed back the assault. John discovered the Flood; a highly adaptive semisentient parasitic organism that took over its hosts' bodies and then grew in size. The Flood took control of Keyes and John was eventually forced to kill the officer to put him out of his misery. As the tensions mounted on Halo, a new, sinister plot emerged.
Soon after the discovery of the Flood, they attacked Alpha Base, inflicting horrendous casualties upon the brave Marine defenders and infecting some of them. Meanwhile, John met 343 Guilty Spark, also known as the Monitor, an insane caretaker of the Halo construct—who had been put in charge of the facility more than one hundred thousand years before. Cortana and John unraveled the dark purpose of Halo—to annihilate all life within a radius of 25,000 years in order to starve the Flood to death.
John and Cortana stopped the Monitor from unleashing Halo and then subsequently destroyed Halo by sending the reactors of the Pillar of Autumn into overload, upsetting the gravitational forces that kept the ring stable. As the Pillar of Autumn was about to be destroyed, Silva and the Marines had seized the Truth and Reconciliation. However, the infestation of the Flood had progressed to the extent to where it was unsafe to bring the ship home to earth, and a brave Marine Lieutenant sacrificed herself as well as the entire ships' new crew in order to save humanity. John and Cortana escaped the destruction of Halo using a Longsword interceptor and seemed to be the only survivors.
Part Three: The Ascendant Justice, Halsey, and Earth
The wreckage of Halo was composed mainly of shards of the ring world, debris from the destroyed Covenant ships, and asteroids from the rings of Threshold. John and Cortana, stuck inside the Longsword with a limited supply of food, water, and air, were unable to escape the system for lack of a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. In desperation, the partners turned to scanning the debris field. They found three cryopods—one of the three (and the only survivor) was Linda, one of Blue Team's members. They also found a Pelican dropship—and they met up with several survivors from Halo's destruction.
The new fellowship captured the Ascendant Justice, a Covenant flagship and escaped from the Threshold system. They headed to Reach, where, unbeknownst to anyone, Dr. Halsey (the progenitor of the Spartan program, see Chapter Three) and over twenty Spartans awaited rescue. The survivors of Halo rescued the Spartans, Halsey, and Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, a prominent Fleet Commander. They also recovered a mysterious artifact that was identified to have origins of the Forerunner, a mysterious, enigmatic master race that the Covenant worshipped. Escaping from Reach on the Ascendant Justice and the Gettysburg (a recovered derelict in orbit around Reach), the survivors witnessed a strange phenomenon—the recovered artifact bent not only the laws of space, but also time.
The survivors then fled the Epsilon Eridani system, and through a long series of events, were able to destroy the Unyielding Hierophant, a refit station for the Covenant fleet of over five hundred ships. There was a very sinister purpose to the incredible buildup of Covenant armaments—the invasion of Earth. Cortana discovered this during her infiltration of the Hierophant's computer system. As significant a blow as this was to the Covenant war machine (the explosion destroyed all but a dozen of the Covenant battlecruisers), the cold reality of the situation was hard to deny. The Covenant knew the location of Earth, and an invasion was imminent. All the team under John had been able to do was to slow the progress of the Covenant.
However, there was a glimmer of hope. Through analysis of technical schematics recovered from Halo's Control Room, Cortana was able to determine that the Covenant technology was imitative rather than innovative—that is, they tended to replicate Forerunner technology rather than use ingenuity to develop new technology. Cortana realized that it was possible for Humanity to win the war—but they needed more time. The battered forces of the UNSC, however, have anything but an abundance of time—and indeed, approximately two months after the destruction of Halo, a massive Covenant war fleet entered the Sol system, engaging Earth's last defenders.
In a highly classified video clip (the Halo 2 trailer), John-117 is shown preparing himself for battle. Situation reports from the video show how Earth's defenses are failing, with Stanforth arguing with orbital defense commanders about how to conduct the defense. The video ends with a shot of John launching himself onto the hull of a Covenant battlecruiser below. Other videos have been shown, showing engagements between UNSC forces and Covenant troops on the surface of Earth itself, but other than these snippets, official sources at this time do not document the battle for Earth and its aftermath.
Thus, the United Nations Space Command sprang from the United Nations, a defunct entity that once called itself master of Earth. As Humanity expanded, the UN became less and less important than the UNSC, which mastered the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, becoming master of more than 800 worlds by 2500. Upon the discovery of the Covenant, the UNSC was quickly battered and whittled away. The UNSC at present is little more than a shadow of its former self, reduced to defending Earth itself against a massive Covenant onslaught.
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