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UNSC Gettysburg

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Gettysburg
H2A Terminals UNSC Gettysburg.png
The Gettysburg docked at the Borneo Space Tether in late 2552.
Ship history
Unified Earth Government

Name:

Gettysburg

Class:

Paris-class heavy frigate[1]

Namesake:

Battle of Gettysburg

Operator:

UNSC Navy[2]

Manufacturer:

alt SinoViet Heavy Machinery[3]

Status:

Active as of late 2552[1]

Captain(s):

Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb

General characteristics

Type:

Frigate[3][4]

Length:

535 meters (1,755 ft)[3][4][5][6][7]

Width:

199 meters (652 ft)[4][5][6]

Mass:

1.3 million tonnes[3]

Power plant:

Fusion reactor[2]

Maneuver drive:

Fusion drive (2 primary, 6 secondary)

Slipspace drive:

Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine[8]
Borer (Retrofitted during FIRST STRIKE)

Complement:

Hull:

60cm[2] Titanium-A armor[5][6]

Armaments:

Air facilities:

One primary hangar bay located in the lower mast of the ship[5]

 

The UNSC Gettysburg was a Paris-class heavy frigate in service with the UNSC Navy during the Human-Covenant War.

Design[edit]

Built around a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon and armed with numerous Archer missile pods, the Gettysburg was a fairly typical UNSC frigate.

It had an Officers' Club aboard, housing a large table of oak, which was heavily scored with numerous gouges and scorches from cigars set upon its surface. There was also a bar stocked with a number of varieties of liquor. It also housed a gold-fringed blue UNSC flag, photographs of past officers and captains of the Gettysburg, and a tin Civil War daguerreotype that displayed battlefields of charging men, cavalry and cannons.

Service history[edit]

Wartime service[edit]

Main articles: Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, Fall of Reach

Gettysburg participated in the defence of Sigma Octanus IV on July 17-18, 2552. In the early hours of July 17, Gettysburg was one of three warships present in the Sigma Octanus system (alongside the frigate UNSC Allegiance and light destroyer UNSC Iroquois) when a Covenant invasion force consisting of four warships arrived to attack the colony there. At this time, Allegiance and Gettysburg were both too far from Sigma Octanus IV to assist in its defence, estimated to arrive at the planet in an hour, leaving Iroquois alone to defend the colony using the "Keyes Loop".[11] After Iroquois managed to destroy three of the escort ships in the Covenant battlegroup, the carrier at the heart of the formation broke off to disengage, with Allegiance and Gettysburg set to intercept it.[12] The vessel then presumably joined Battle Group Leviathan in the larger battle for Sigma Octanus IV hours later on July 18.

UNSC Gettysburg later participated in the UNSC defence of Reach, where it was present at the planet's fall in late August 2552. During the fighting over Reach, Gettysburg suffered a strike from an energy projector that "gutted it stem to stern" and obliterated the bridge and life support, killing the crew. However, the ship remained relatively intact, with its fusion reactors, Magnetic Accelerator Cannon (MAC), and dorsal hardpoints surviving the hit. Before its destruction, Gettysburg's captain purged the ship's nav database and artificial intelligence, per the Cole Protocol.[2]

Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice[edit]

Despite its destruction during the Fall of Reach, Gettysburg continued service for the UNSC when it was salvaged weeks later on September 23, 2552. The ship was first identified by Cortana as a potentially useful vessel after a group of survivors from the battle of Installation 04 returned to Reach aboard a captured Covenant Ruma-pattern light carrier, Ascendant Justice. The Justice had taken heavy damage during the Skirmish over Threshold weeks prior and as such Cortana wanted to use a UNSC ship to give the Covenant vessel additional power. After surveying the debris field over Reach, disregarding larger cruisers and carriers due to their bulk, she identified the destroyer Tharsis and frigate Gettysburg as potentially-useful candidates. After examining further, she settled on Gettysburg due to its intact reactor. With the additional power from the Gettysburg, now acting as the second part of a human-Covenant hybrid ship, the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice, Cortana was able to make slipspace jumps far quicker.[2]

After retreating from Reach, Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice was followed into slipspace by a Covenant fleet and promptly engaged in combat inside an anomalous slipspace field generated by the slipspace crystal recovered by the ship's crew. During the battle, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb had Gettysburg's hangar bay pressurised and then explosively decompressed as part of a successful tactic in battle against a Covenant fleet.[13]

The Gettysburg was subsequently repaired enough to become habitable again by the time John-117 regained consciousness following his close encounter with a Covenant plasma bolt during the battle and the human crew transferred over to the Gettysburg from the Ascendant Justice. Doctor Catherine Halsey was able to use the ship's surgical suites and flash cloning banks to treat Linda-058's near-fatal injuries from the firefight on Gamma Station and Kelly-087's severe plasma burns. To make the bridge usable again, the crew welded hull plates over the blown-out windows and placed monitors over the plates. Additionally, with Ascendant Justice's reactors offline, the two ships were relying on the Gettysburg's reactors to move which were only working at 67% capacity.[2]

Main article: Massacre at Eridanus Secundus

In order to get repairs for the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice, the crew took the two ships to the rebel base at Eridanus Secundus. After some posturing on both sides, Governor Jacob Jiles agreed to meet with them only to have a Covenant cruiser show up. Operating from the bridge of the Gettysburg, the UNSC forces attempted to destroy the cruiser with Ascendant Justice's one working plasma turret, only to have the turret misfire and burn off some of the Gettysburg's remaining armor. With no ammunition on the Gettysburg and Ascendant Justice's magnetic coils overloaded, John came up with the plan to use the magnetic coils for Gettysburg's MAC gun to shape and aim the plasma for Ascendant Justice's turret while using two of the ship's three Clarion spy drones to be able to see the cruiser coming. The Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice succeeded in destroying the cruiser, but the magnetic pulse knocked out the Gettysburg's reactor and engines but Jiles had his fleet give the ship a tow back to the asteroid base for repairs.[14]

With the help of Jiles and his people, they were able to repair Gettysburg's reactors and engines as well as conducting repairs to Ascendant Justice. Using his stockpile of munitions, Jiles was able to restock sixteen Archer missiles for the Gettysburg, but the return of the Covenant forced Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice to leave before the shakedown of the hybrid ship's systems was finished.[15]

Operation: FIRST STRIKE[edit]

Main article: Operation: FIRST STRIKE

In order to buy Earth time with the Covenant set to invade, the Spartans convinced Admiral Whitcomb to allow them to launch a first strike. With Whitcomb unwilling to risk Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice, the Spartans welded layers of lead, boron fibers and Titanium-A hull plates removed from the Gettysburg to a Dextro Xur-pattern Spirit so they could survive the transition from slipspace to normal space in the smaller craft as well as loading it up with munitions scavenged from the frigate's stores.[16]

Hours later, after rigging the Unyielding Hierophant to blow, the Spartans received the "Oly Oly Oxen Free" message and made contact with Whitcomb who explained that he had brought Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice out of slipspace on the system's edge to do some reconnaissance before deciding to do something about the Covenant fleet after witnessing its sheer size. Following Whitcomb's instructions, the Spartans traveled to the far side of a nearby moon where they found the Gettysburg waiting for them alone. Sergeant Johnson explained that while they were gone, the crew had placed Ascendant Justice's slipspace drive into the Gettysburg. Using a spy drone, the crew watched as Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson lured the Covenant fleet in close to the exploding station with Ascendant Justice and a hologram of the Forerunner crystal, sacrificing themselves to destroy all but about a dozen Covenant vessels. Afterwards, the Gettysburg made a random slipspace jump per the Cole Protocol before finally resuming the journey back to Earth.[17]

Return to Earth[edit]

At some point before the Battle for Earth, the frigate docked with the Borneo Space Tether and deployed Linda-058 and Frederic-104.[1]

Trivia[edit]

  • Gettysburg is named after the Battle of Gettysburg, the American Civil War battle that took place on July 1–3, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on Earth. This is interesting, in that it was fused with a Covenant vessel, just as the two factions of the American Civil War eventually rejoined into one country.
  • UNSC Gettysburg is the only known UNSC ship to be fitted with a Covenant slipspace drive and be able to execute slipspace jumps without any side effects on the ship, even though the ship was not equipped with energy shields.
  • When Cortana first appropriates the Gettysburg, its stated that the Gettysburg's thrusters are off-line and the ship won't ever be moving on its own again. However, later chapters make it clear that the makeshift crew is primarily using the Gettysburg's engines to move the hybrid ship around with Cortana telling the Master Chief when he awakens on the Gettysburg that Ascendant Justice's engines are crippled.

List of appearances[edit]

Sources[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Halo 2: Anniversary, Terminal #14
  2. ^ a b c d e f Halo: First Strike, chapter 22
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition), page 120
  4. ^ a b c Halo: The Essential Visual Guide, page 76
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Halo: The Essential Visual Guide, page 162
  6. ^ a b c d e f Halo: The Essential Visual Guide, page 80
  7. ^ Halo Waypoint, UNSC Frigate (Retrieved on May 13, 2021) [archive]
  8. ^ Halo: Reach, campaign level Long Night of Solace
  9. ^ a b c d Halo: The Fall of Reach, chapter 12
  10. ^ Halo: Fleet Battles: Paris-class heavy frigate stats
  11. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, chapter 16
  12. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, chapter 17
  13. ^ Halo: First Strike, chapter 22
  14. ^ Halo: First Strike (2010), pages 314-321
  15. ^ Halo: First Strike (2010), pages 333-338
  16. ^ Halo: First Strike (2010), pages 348-351
  17. ^ Halo: First Strike (2010), pages 392-399

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Frigates in human naval service
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