Unyielding Hierophant

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"I'm not sure what that thing is. Don't look like any 'uneven elephant' to me-—more like two squids kissing."

- Avery Johnson

The Unyielding Hierophant was a Covenant command-and-control center and refit-battle station that was capable of supporting a fleet of over 500 capital ships. It was capable of slipspace jumps and was over 10 kilometers (6.3 miles) in circumference. This type of vessel possesses at least two fusion reactor cores for power.

Appearance
The Unyielding Hierophant was shaped like a figure-eight, with two tear-drop shaped bulbous sections connected at the center, each 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) long which makes it 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) long total. A rotating ring is connected to the central hub by many long spokes, and is used by Covenant cruisers and carriers to dock with the space station. Thin, filament-like tubes extend from both bulbous sections and move over the surface of the ring; these may be tubes used for transporting personnel and cargo between the ring and other parts of the station.

Running the circumference of the station's hub is a repair-and-refit facility, with many slots for Covenant spacecraft to dock and be attended to by Huragok work teams. This section of the ship is crewed by thousands of Huragok and a small number of Unggoy.

Inside the main sections, it has large "rooms" that contain environments with foliage, water, and animals to simulate the Covenant's worlds and make occupants feel more at home, rather than on a huge station. John-117 compared these to the large atrium that FLEETCOM HQ has in its lobby. These areas have temples for religious sessions. In these large rooms, the Spartans saw pipe-like tubes that carried passengers from one destination to the other inside capsules. Also, the Covenant seemed to have an almost complete control of gravity in the station, as water was seen flowing up and sideways.

History
At some point before the Covenant assault to Earth, the Prophet of Truth had managed to discover the location of humanity's homeworld. He secretly begun amassing a fleet of over five hundred warships commanded exclusively by the Jiralhanae to attack and occupy Earth.

At the time of its destruction it was located in the Tau Ceti system. The system was used as a rendezvous point for Covenant forces before they prepared to launch their impending attack on Earth. When the the crew of the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg discovered this, they decided to initiate a first strike against the Covenant to postpone an inevitable Covenant assault against Earth. A team of SPARTAN-IIs, among them John-117, Grace-093, Fred-104, Linda-058 and William-043 commandeered a Covenant dropship and, after they had reinforced the armor of the dropship with Titanium-A armor, lead, and carbon molybdenum steel I-beams so the ship could withstand immense pressures, departed and made the transition from Slipspace to normal space in one piece.

The Spartan-IIs infiltrated the station, using the Covenant's own tugs to tow them aboard, finding themselves within a hangar capable of docking hundreds of single-ships. Avoiding the Covenant presence, the Spartans proceeded inward, with a copy of Cortana infiltrating the Station's network to distract and hinder the Covenant's coordination. Managing to cross an open plaza with only the loss of Grace-093, who was killed by a Brute with a Brute Shot, Blue team neutralized the Brute guards of a temple and proceeded to the 512 tera-watt reactors, with the copied Cortana setting them to overload, which would destroy the station and nearby fleet.

The Spartans attempted to flee using captured Banshees, now taking heavy fire from the Covenant forces aware of their presence. After destroying one of the plaza's windows, they managed to escape, hijacking a floating Covenant dropship and making their way to the evacuation point for the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg. The Ascendant Justice, separated from the Gettysburg and commandeered by Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson, drew the Covenant's attention to the station with a holographic ruse, keeping them within the blast radius; the detonation destroyed virtually all of the five-hundred strong fleet, the largest space victory ever accomplished by the UNSC.

Trivia

 * The five hundred twelve tera-watt energy that is used to power the shield generator of the station is strong enough to repel the collision of a small moon.
 * A hierophant, according to Webster's Dictionary is a "priest in ancient Greece; specifically: the chief priest of the Eleusinian mysteries". This may be a reference to the Prophets and their role in Covenant Society. Also, the Eleusinian mysteries could be seen as referring to the Great Journey as both promised salvation to believers and an afterlife.
 * It was here that Linda-058 showed her sniping prowess. Sniping one handed, hanging on a steel cable, she was able to provide covering fire for the other Spartans. She took out four pursuing Banshees by shooting through the tiny crack in between the top and bottom segments where the driver enters, which is impossible in all of the games except in Halo: Reach.
 * According to the Halo Encyclopedia, the 12 ships that survived the station's explosion are the ships the Prophet of Regret brought with him to Earth. However, a history entry in Halo Waypoint establishes these ships to be a part of the fleet secretly summoned to the station by the Prophet of Truth and later used to reinforce Regret's forces on Earth during the events of Halo 3: ODST and after.

List of appearances

 * Halo: First Strike