Operation: RED FLAG
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| Operation: RED FLAG | |||||||||||||||
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 UNSC Pillar of Autumn departing from Reach to begin Operation: RED FLAG at 0530, August 30, 2552.[1] | |||||||||||||||
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Operation abandoned | ||||||||||||||
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- "Assembled here tonight are all surviving Spartans save three, who are otherwise engaged on fields of combat too distant to be easily recalled. In the last decade of combat there have only been three KIAs and one Spartan too wounded to continue active duty. You are to be commended for having the best operational record of any unit in the fleet. It is very good to see you all again."
- — Dr. Halsey beginning her briefing.
Operation: RED FLAG was a planned United Nations Space Command operation designed to put an end to the 27-year struggle of the Human-Covenant War. It was initiated by ONI Section Three in mid-2552, though its foundations were laid by Operation: METEORITE the previous year.[3] It was a desperate attempt to avert humanity's imminent defeat at the hands of the Covenant; however, the operation was never carried out due to the Fall of Reach and the UNSC's subsequent retreat to Earth.[4]
Background[edit]
By 2551, UNSC High Command was under the belief that humanity would definitively lose their ongoing war with the Covenant within a year. As such, they were desperate to find solutions that could allow them to strike at the heart of the Covenant and its leadership. Such an opportunity presented itself in July 2551, when a lone Covenant starship—the Triumph of Tolerance—was discovered alone in orbit of the recently-glassed world Promise. The UNSC were quick to take advantage of this situation in a mission codenamed Operation: METEORITE. Inspired by a similar mission earlier in the war, the UNSC were to deploy two supersoldiers—Spartan John-117 and Orion Avery Johnson—to the vessel to capture a starholo containing navigation data that may assist with a strike at the heart of the empire.[5] The two infiltrated by Triumph by means of a captured Spirit dropship with support from the destroyer UNSC Burden of Proof, ultimately succeeding in their mission to capture the starholo. This revealed the existence and current location of the Covenant's capital-station "High Charity", which in turn allowed planning for a strike to begin.[6]
Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth began work on operational recommendation documents in March 2552. On July 19 of that year—around a year after Operation: METEORITE—Parangosky recommended that the UNSC began seriously considering RED FLAG after the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had predicted that the Covenant had an 87.2% probability of stumbling upon Reach by the end of the year.[7]
Multiple sources indicate that the UNSC were able to conduct some kind of covert infiltration of High Charity, presumably after learning of the station in July 2551 and RED FLAG's intended initiation date in late 2552. During the battle for Tribute, Connor Brien claimed to have have been part of a mission that boarded the station and exfiltrated successfully.[8] Rumours in the post-war era suggest that early revisions of the RANGER-class Mjolnir armor were used to infiltrate High Charity.[9]
Operation[edit]
The operation was to be executed in four phases,[10] around a colony under attack by the Covenant; Admiral Stanforth preferred one with a large amount of Forerunner relics. Reach was at first only a hypothetical option, but ONI was willing to sacrifice the planet after calculating the inevitability of its discovery.[7][11] Although the operation was initially planned to be a Spartans-only mission, a battalion of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers—the 105th Shock Troops Division, 22nd Tactical—under the command of Major Antonio Silva were also assigned to RED FLAG possibly out of concern that the Navy would be unable to handle it alone.[12] MA5B assault rifles issued for RED FLAG were fitted with high-density magazines holding up to 60 rounds.[13]
- Phase One — The first objective of the operation consisted of the disabling and capture of a Covenant flagship carrier (either a CAS-class assault carrier or a CSO-class supercarrier). For the first phase, Dr. Halsey selected Captain Jacob Keyes for his exemplary performance during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, and his newly fitted cruiser, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn. For the completion of the mission, Stanforth was willing to risk his own ships in order to bait any artifact-retrieval ships into going planetside.[10]
- Phase Two — Involving the boarding of the captured Covenant vessel by a group of SPARTAN-IIs. They would then neutralize the onboard defenses and commandeer the ship. They, with help from a then-unidentified mission specialist, would then crack the navigation database of the ship and discover the location of the Covenant capital world, "High Charity".[10]
- Phase Three — With the help of the mission specialist, the Spartans would then pilot the captured Covenant carrier to High Charity.[10]
- Phase Four — The final phase of the operation involved the infiltration of High Charity and the capture of one of the three Covenant Prophet Hierarchs for negotiating purposes. The UNSC hoped that by capturing a Hierarch and holding him hostage, they could force the Covenant into agreeing to a truce, thereby ending a war that the UNSC would most certainly have lost. Killing the Hierarch was out of the question, as ONI's analysts predicted it would just incite the Covenant to vengeance, thereby escalating the war.[10]
Outcome[edit]
Long Night of Solace[edit]
ONI predicted in July 2552 that the Covenant would likely attack Reach within the next six months;[7] this was proven correct a little over a week later, when the Fleet of Valiant Prudence stumbled upon the Epsilon Eridani system after their victory at the battle of Beta Eridani. The fleet was led by the CSO supercarrier Long Night of Solace, a vessel suitable for use as outlined in RED FLAG. The ship was first identified during the battle at Szurdok Ridge on August 12, and the UNSC subsequently scrambled to react to it.[14] On August 14, two missions were enacted; operations UPPER CUT and LEFT JAB. LEFT JAB involved the use of Stanforth's Battle Group Leviathan to spread the Covenant escort fleet thin, while UPPER CUT allowed for a Spartan team to infiltrate a Covenant corvette, Ardent Prayer, and use it to attack the supercarrier. A miscommunication between UNSC Naval Command and Unified Ground Command meant that where Stanforth intended for <