Mantle's Approach: Difference between revisions

|name=Mantle's Approach

|image=[[File:H4-MantlesApproach-ScanRender.png|150px]]

|manufacturer=Forerunner

|role=Flagship

|destroyed=[[2557#July|July 25, 2557]]<ref>'''[[Halo: Escalation]]''', ''Issue #7''</ref>

'''''Mantle's Approach''''' was the [[Ur-Didact|Didact]]'s personal flagship.<ref>'''[[Halo Waypoint]]''', ''Section 3 Archive''</ref>

This massive vessel was once captained by the Didact at the height of Forerunner power. Built during the [[human-Forerunner wars]], it served as the Ur-Didact's personal command ship. The [[design seed]] of the vessel was not approved by the [[Ecumene Council]] but the [[Master Builder]] [[Faber]].<ref>[https://forums.halowaypoint.com/yaf_postsm2959627_Mantle-s-Approach-Size.aspx#post2959627 '''Halo Waypoint''' - ''Mantle's Approach Size'' (343's answer)]</ref> While not the largest of Forerunner ships, ''Mantle's Approach'' was the fastest and most heavily armed warship in the [[Forerunner fleet]].<ref name="VIS"/> The ship held a number of [[Z-330 Forerunner Escort|escort craft]] for transport within the vessel,<ref name="escort">'''[[Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide]]''', ''page 123''</ref> and at its height it possessed enormous support fleets of both manned and automated combat craft, including [[war sphinx]]es,<ref name="escort"/> [[sentinel]]s and internally-stored fighters.<ref name="VIS"/> During the Didact's assault on [[Omega Halo]], it had an escort of thousands of sentinels.<ref>'''Halo: Silentium''', ''pages 261-262''</ref> Like many Forerunner warships,<ref>'''Halo: Silentium''', ''pages 213''</ref> ''Mantle's Approach'' possessed a cloaking ability.<ref name="cloak"/>

[[File:H4-Terminal-Village-Mantle.jpg|thumb|left|''Mantle's Approach'', moments before [[Composer|composing]] a human village.]]

During the final years of the [[Forerunner-Flood war]], after being returned to the [[ecumene]] from his captivity at the clutches of the [[Gravemind]], the Ur-Didact reassumed command of ''Mantle's Approach''. He used the ship to travel to [[Nomdagro]] and later when he followed the [[Librarian]]'s ship, ''[[Audacity]]'', to the [[greater Ark]]. Once there, he remained aboard the ''Mantle's Approach'' in orbit over the Ark, where he was briefly visited by the Librarian. When the Ark fell [[Battle of the greater Ark|under siege]] by [[Flood]] forces, the Didact moved the ship to the nearby [[Omega Halo]] and used a [[Composer]], a device designed to transfer organic consciousness to digital form, integrated to the ship to harvest the essences of the [[human]] population that had been transplanted to the ring. He then immediately departed aboard ''Mantle's Approach'', headed for [[Requiem]], his primary [[shield world]]. He docked the ship inside Requiem and began to process the harvested human essences into the next generation of [[Promethean Knight]]s.<ref name="silentium">'''Halo: Silentium''', ''String 34''</ref>

Unbeknownst to the Ur-Didact, however, [[SPARTAN-II Program|Spartan]] [[John-117]] had survived the Composer's deadly pulse due to the Librarian's intervention. Pursuing ''Mantle's Approach'' aboard a [[HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon|nuclear-armed]] [[F-41 Broadsword]], the Spartan took out the ship's point defense turrets, allowing the {{UNSCship|Infinity}} to punch a hole through the ship's hull with her fore weapons. The Master Chief then fought his way through the ship, eventually finding the Didact controlling the Composer under an impenetrable force field. The AI [[Cortana]] overloaded the shields by flooding the ship's mainframe with her rampant duplicates, allowing the Chief to confront and defeat the Didact with a [[Z-040 pulse grenade|pulse grenade]].<ref name="midnight">'''Halo 4''', campaign level ''[[Midnight]]</ref>

With the Composer already firing upon [[New Phoenix]], [[Unified Republic of North America|URNA]], the Spartan manually detonated the HAVOK warhead as a desperate last resort. The Composer was destroyed by the HAVOK nuke, taking the ''Mantle's Approach'' along with it. The dying Cortana teleported the Master Chief out of the ship at the very last moment and created a [[hard light]] barrier around him, saving John's life at the cost of her own.<ref name="midnight"/>