UNSC The Heart of Midlothian

Halberd-class
Ship history
Name:	The Heart of Midlothian
Class:	Halberd-class light destroyer
Namesake:	Heart of Midlothian F.C.
Identification:	Hull classification symbol: DD-366
Operator:	UNSC Navy
Manufacturer:	SinoViet Heavy Machinery
Fate:	Self-destructed per the Cole Protocol, 2548
Artificial intelligence(s):	Mo Ye
General characteristics
Type:	Destroyer
Length:	485 meters (1,590 ft)
Mass:	1.8 million metric tons
Power plant:	Fusion reactor
Maneuver drive:	Four primary fusion drives; Four secondary fusion drives;
Slipspace drive:	Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine
Crew:	250 sailors
Complement:	2 F-29 Nandao squadrons (optional); 2 Pelican dropships;
Troops:	50 Marines (optional)
Hull:	2 metres (6.6 ft) Titanium-A armor
Sensors:	Mk. 45 long-range fire director
Armaments:	1 14B11R2 MAC battery Twin-linked 1170mm/647mm (46"/25.5") high-velocity coilguns; ; 26 M58 Archer missile pods; 4 M870 Rampart point defense guns; 3 Shiva-class nuclear missiles;
Air facilities:	1 hangar bay fitted with a gravitic/electromagnetic catapult launch/recovery system

UNSC The Heart of Midlothian (hull classification symbol: DD-366)^[1] was a Halberd-class light destroyer used by the Navy of the United Nations Space Command.^[10] It served in the Human-Covenant War until its destruction shortly following the Algolis Invasion in 2549.^[1]

Service history[edit]

Human-Covenant War[edit]

Main article: Human-Covenant War

In 2549, Heart of Midlothian was deployed alone to the Algol system to assist in the defence of Algolis from the Covenant.^[1] The ship's deployment was rushed due to reports from civilians evacuating the colony, and as such the UNSC had very little intelligence to work with on what to expect on the planet.^[2]

Upon arriving in the system the ship was intended to conduct a slingshot around the gravity well of a gas giant in the system, placing it on a trajectory to intercept Algolis, where it was to deploy a force of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers and link up with a frigate to assist in evacuation of the colony.^[1] After evacuation and destruction of prototype weapon systems, the two vessels would then leave orbit and escape before a large Covenant fleet could arrive. However, the ship never made it to Algolis, and was intercepted by a Covenant fleet upon emerging from slipspace, including several never-before seen ships. The Covenant seemingly-knew where Midlothian was set to emerge from slipspace and ambushed the destroyer as soon as it reentered realspace, having placed themselves inside the minimum effective range of its weapons and inflicting over 200 breaches on the hull before the ship's AI Mo Ye could respond. After this, the Covenant launched a wave of R'sisho-pattern Tick boarding craft to board the ship and capture data from its navigation computer.^[2]

At the time Midlothian entered slipspace to Algolis, one of the ODSTs aboard - Sergeant Michael Baird - was undergoing a routine surgery that left him unconscious due to anesthesia. As such he was the only survivor of the Covenant attack as the aliens believed the unconscious Baird to be dead. He was later woken 23 hours after initially going under for surgery, where he proceeded to fight his way to the bridge. The Covenant force which boarded the ship, apparently a special operations group of some kind, had used a Huragok to lock Mo Ye out of the systems and as such, she was unable to enact the Cole Protocol. Once at the bridge, Baird pretended to surrender and offered the location of Earth to the Covenant, but told them that the knowledge they sought would require Mo Ye to be reconnected to the ship's systems. After this was achieved, he allowed the Sangheili commander of the boarding party to kill him, in doing so freeing Mo Ye to enact the ship's self-destruct; with Baird dead, Mo Ye was no longer bound by the First Law of Robotics, and so not bound by an inability to kill a human. The ship's nuclear weapons then detonated, killing all personnel aboard and destroying the Covenant fleet surrounding it.^[2]

Known crew[edit]

Production notes[edit]

The details surrounding Heart of Midlothian's destruction differ, depending on source. The original short story Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian in the Halo: Evolutions anthology notes that the ship was able to link up with the survivors of the Covenant attack on Algolis, and learned what had happened there. However, in the story's motion comic adaptation (and the Halo Waypoint page based on it), the destroyer is noted to have been destroyed before it could reach Algolis.

Trivia[edit]

The ship was named after The Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott, which is considered by many to be his finest book.
It also shares its name with a football club of the same name based in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was Frank O'Connor's favorite football club when he lived in Edinburgh.