Battle of Oban
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The Battle of Oban was an engagement fought on the planet Oban on July 16, 2558 between Jul 'Mdama's Covenant, and their Promethean allies, and the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). The battle was a part of a larger struggle between the Covenant and the UNSC's Expeditionary Strike Group 1, led by UNSC Infinity, both seeking to secure the other's half of the Janus Key. To that end, the Covenant's Supreme Commander Jul 'Mdama staged an attack on Oban with the aim of drawing Infinity into a vulnerable position.[1] While the raid was repelled by Infinity's responding forces at high costs to the Covenant,[1] it succeeded in drawing the vessel into the trap that 'Mdama had devised.[3]
Presumably while Infinity was present at Oban,[4] Spartan forces including Holly Tanaka partook in Operation: WHITE VAN, an unrelated operation that involved a Spartan security and testing detachment for Misriah Armory's classified Project SENIOR ICE prototype.[5]
Background[edit]
During the Requiem Campaign in February 2558, Doctor Catherine Halsey was gifted a Forerunner artefact, the Janus Key, by an essence of the Librarian. The Librarian intended for humanity to use the key to learn the location of the Absolute Record, allowing them to attain the Mantle of Responsibility and fulfill their role as reclaimers of the Forerunners' legacy. Earlier in the campaign Halsey had defected from the UNSC to work for Jul's Covenant in order to gain access to the site of the Librarian. When Fireteam Majestic were dispatched to bring Halsey in, she attempted to pass the key onto Spartan Gabriel Thorne. In the ensuing fighting, Halsey was shot by Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer and the key was split in half, with each side obtaining one piece.[6]
For Halsey, the attempted (and unsanctioned) assassination by Palmer led her to believe that the UNSC were now dead-set on killing her,[1] and fuelled her want for revenge.[7] The split key also set both sides on a new path; while Requiem was destroyed at the end of the campaign, both sides wished to attain the Absolute Record and gain control of the Forerunners' technology.[1]
Five months after Requiem's loss, the Covenant set this new plan into motion. In it, the Covenant would stage a raid on Oban with the goal of drawing the attention of Infinity, at which point they could lure the ship to an uncharted system and then sieze the other half of the Janus Key for themselves. In mid-July, the Covenant Kerel-pattern assault carrier Song of Retribution deployed Covenant and Promethean forces to Oban, beginning the battle.[1][3]
The battle[edit]
The raid on Oban's primary goal was to draw the attention of Infinity into the Covenant's trap. As such, the attack itself did not have any particularly strategic targets, instead seeing Covenant forces deployed to various colonial and engineering outposts to inflict wanton destruction on the civilian populace.[1] The battle opened on an unknown date with the deployment of the Third Dignitary Schema, a corps of Promethean Knights under Jul 'Mdama's control, to the planet. The Knights were air-dropped onto the planet from high-altitude Twelfth-order escort craft, landing at the colonial facilities and beginning a mass slaughter of any humans they could find there. This killing went against the Knights' basic instincts, with the ideal directive for the humans on Oban being to have them composed and turned into new Knights. The lack of such a device meant that this option was unavailable, something which the Strategos commanding the operation found wasteful.[3]
The Knights deployed to Oban were the first observed by the UNSC to display evident design upgrades from the ones previously encountered on Requiem.[8][9][10] During the engagement, one such Knight TDS-009 was noted for its combat effectiveness and given a field-promotion to Knight Commander, alongside a cadre of Crawlers to direct. Together, these units charged a human structure, with the Crawlers managing to smash through the hastily-assembled barricades and dragging some of the guards outside, where they were killed. During the fighting, TSD-009 began to experience strange glitches representative of other phenomena manifesting throughout the Knights of Jul's army, seeing a vision of a human child in front of it - one apparently unobserved by any other Knight around it. The Strategos instead noted TDS-009's cessation of hostilities and directed other nearby forces to compensate, promoting a Crawler to Alpha status. Ultimately, the Prometheans were ordered to leave the bodies of their victims where they lay, with the intention that they be found by the UNSC.[3]
By July 18, a joint UNSC Spartan-Marine Corps operation was dispatched to north-east Saviron on Oban to respond to the attack. The Spartan complement of the response included Fireteam Majestic alongside Commander Palmer and Spartan Joel Thomas. Palmer viewed the operation as critically important, having come to believe that Supreme Commander 'Mdama or Doctor Halsey must be on the ground on the planet, despite no prior intelligence indicating as such, largely stemming from her own personal frustratrations with Halsey and the failed assassination on Requiem back in February. Throughout the battle, she continuously reinforced that Jul 'Mdama was the Spartans' primary high-value target.[1]
During the fighting, Spartan Thorne was ambushed by a Promethean Knight, but he was saved by Commander Palmer. With the Prometheans' presence, Palmer ordered all UNSC forces to search for and find Jul 'Mdama. Meanwhile, Spartan Joel Thomas used a H-295 target designator to order an air strike on two Ru'swum-pattern Phantoms near Palmer's position. Palmer ordered Thorne to get to an M12 Chaingun Warthog and pursue the Phantoms, but they were ambushed and pursued by Crawlers. They dispatched several of the Crawlers and Palmer jumped off of a cliff, directly above the Phantoms. The Warthog landed on the ground, injuring Thorne, and the Phantoms prepared to fire their heavy plasma cannons at them. However, the C712 Longsword from Thomas' air support appeared, destroying both Phantoms, and saving Palmer's and Thorne's lives.[1]
At the conclusion of the raid, Promethean forces would be recalled to Song of Retribution via their escort ships.[2]
Aftermath[edit]
In total, Jul's forces suffered heavy losses in the battle, while inflicting only minor damage to a new power station and briefly pausing the planet's colonization efforts.[1] Despite this tactical defeat, the raid was considered by the Covenant's leadership to be a success in furthering their broader strategic plan, as Infinity was now in position to try and pursue them.[3] In turn, Commander Palmer viewed the mission and the lack of a captured Jul or Halsey as a defeat despite the success in inflicting extreme losses on the Covenant. Infinity'S Captain Thomas Lasky chided the Commander for acting hastily despite there being no proof Jul 'Mdama was ever present on the planet. The following day, when the Infinity jumped into slipspace, its slipspace drive experienced an anomaly which trapped them in an uncharted system. Unbeknownst to them, Dr. Halsey and 'Mdama possessed an artifact capable of contacting the Infinity's Forerunner components, including her slipspace drive, allowing them to confine the flagship within the system.[1] This ultimately set the stage for the Battle of Aktis IV between July 19-20, which would see Infinity's half of the Janus Key fall into Covenant hands, and bring the two to blows at the Absolute Record in September.
More pressingly for the Covenant, TDS-009's unusual behaviour during the engagement at Oban proved the first sign of the inherent instability within the Promethean army under Jul's command. Writing in her journal on July 22, two days after the engagement on Aktis IV, Halsey theorised that the unwilling nature of the citizens forcibly subsumed into the Prometheans the previous year was manifesting as glitches and aberrations that would eventually grow into a much larger problem for the Supreme Commander. This caused Halsey to rethink her alliance of convenience with the Covenant, and begin looking for a way out.[3] By the time of the Battle of Kamchatka in October 2558, Halsey's prediction was proven correct when the Prometheans were placed under the charge of a new master.
Gallery[edit]
Commander Palmer fends off Promethean Crawlers with a machine gun.
Palmer saves Thorne from a Promethean knight.
Promethean crawlers attack Thorne and Palmer.
The Spartans use a Warthog to retreat.
Palmer runs a warthog on top of a Phantom.
The Warthog falls from the Phantom.
The Phantom prepares to attack the Spartan.
A Longsword destroys two Phantoms.
Palmer tends to Thorne.
List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: Escalation (First appearance)
- Halo 5: Guardians (Mentioned only)
- Halo: The Machine Breaks
Sources[edit]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Halo: Escalation, issue 13
- ^ a b c Halo: The Machine Breaks
- ^ a b c d e f Halo: The Machine Breaks
- ^ See here for more details.
- ^ Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition, Dossier files - Holly Tanaka
- ^ Halo 4 - Spartan Ops, episode Key
- ^ Halo 4 - Spartan Ops, episode Exodus
- ^ Halo 5: Guardians, campaign level Osiris: "New kind too. Like they reported on Oban." - Holly Tanaka
- ^ Halo Waypoint, Canon Fodder - Locke & Load (Retrieved on Dec 23, 2019) [archive]
- ^ Halo 5: Guardians, REQ Card: Boltshot "Burst-fire energy pistol. Bolts home-in on close range targets. This new functionality appears to be related to other adaptions the Prometheans have displayed since the disappearance of the Didact."
