Mantle's Approach

This article is about the ship used in Halo 4 and Halo: Silentium. For the ship in Halo: Cryptum, see Didact's ship.

Mantle's Approach
Production information
Manufacturer:	Master Builder's Fabricae
Role:	Domination
Specifications
Length:	142.7 kilometers (88.7 mi)
Width:	138.6 kilometers (86.1 mi)
Height:	371.4 kilometers (230.8 mi)
Mass:	4.7 quadrillion metric tons
Slipspace drive:	Equipped
Hull:	Programmable matter held together by hard light bonds and energy interlocks.
Countermeasures:	Cloaking system Torsion fields
Armament:	Composer 1 heavy ion weapon system 1 stasis tension driver 40 torsion driver arrays 1,700 light mass fusillade cannons 25,000 converging beam cannons Particle cannon network Anti-Ship Artillery System Z-8250 heavy artillery Z-8250 light artillery
Complement:	1 Strategos 25 Princeps 800 Navarchs 250,000 Praetorians 5.5 million Venatores Over a billion Promethean constructs Knights Watchers Crawlers
Service information
Commissioned:	Human-Forerunner wars
Destroyed:	July 25, 2557
Participated battles:	Forerunner-Flood war Battle of the greater Ark Post-Covenant War conflicts Raid on Ivanoff Station New Phoenix Incident
Noteworthy crewmembers:	Endurance-of-Will
Known commanders:	Ur-Didact
Affiliation:	Prometheans

Mantle's Approach was an unordered command vessel built specifically to serve as the personal flagship of the Didact. The only vessel of its kind, the Mantle's Approach played a pivotal roles in the final years of the Forerunner-Flood war executing the Didact's will by launching an army of machine-warriors that were effectively impervious to the Flood, and later composing humans to create more of these warriors. The ship would remain on Requiem throughout the Didact's imprisonment, only to be awakened along with the Forerunner. The Mantle's Approach would ultimately be destroyed by John-117 and Cortana with a well-placed nuclear warhead. What remained of the ship's core escaped via an emergency slipspace jump to the shield world of Genesis.

Overview

Design details

The Mantle's Approach featured a core seed that acted as the heart of the ship. Even if the ship was destroyed, the core seed could rebuild it as long as it had access to raw materials of sufficient quality. The ship featured a specialized command sector known as the Hall of Command. The Heroes' Walk housed the barracks, training grounds, museums, and halls of honors for the ship's Forerunners. After the Warrior-Servants voluntarily composed themselves, the section was no longer necessary. The Exalted Sepulcher was remodeled to service composed Prometheans. The Mantle's Approach was capable of constructing a billion Knight shells, but there were never enough essences available to fill them. Large numbers of empty Knight shells in maintenance cradles survived the ship's destruction and its' remnants arrival at Genesis. The vessel possessed powerful shielding, able to shrug off attacks by the UNSC Home Fleet and orbital MAC platforms without any trouble. Only a shot from two of the UNSC Infinity's main batteries managed to penetrate the shields and they failed to inflict any significant damage upon the vessel which was able to shift its structure to quickly close the hole. Even getting this shot required the Infinity to move into relatively close proximity and for the point-defense guns in that area to be destroyed.

Hull and weaponry

The Mantle's Approach featured a variable geometry hull full of programmable matter, hard light, and energy interlocks in order to change its shape for fighting the Flood and Ancient Humanity. The ship's main cannon was a heavy ion weapon system adapted from emplacements used on planet-cracking siege platforms. Firing a bolt of exotic matter accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light, the cannon was able to buckle continental plates and disintegrate phase-rotated fortifications. However, the ship must reconfigure after a single shot. Another important armament was the