Truth and Reconciliation

"The enemy has captured Captain Keyes, and are holding him aboard one of their cruisers, the Truth and Reconciliation."

- Cortana

The Truth and Reconciliation was a Covenant Ket-pattern in the Fleet of Particular Justice. Its Shipmaster was Lat 'Ravamee.

Fall of Reach
The Truth and Reconciliation served within the Fleet of Particular Justice during the Fall of Reach in summer 2552. When the fled Reach on August 30, Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee ordered the Truth and Reconciliation, along with several other Covenant vessels, to pursue the human warship. The Covenant's forces arrived at Halo Installation 04 well in advance of the Pillar of Autumn, which arrived on September 19.

Battle of Installation 04
After the Pillar of Autumn arrived at Installation 04, it was able to evade detection by the Covenant vessels there, surreptitiously analyzing Installation 04. However, a Seraph fighter stumbled upon the Pillar of Autumn by chance and relayed its coordinates to the Covenant fleet, which engaged the Pillar of Autumn.

In the ensuing naval battle, the artificial intelligence Cortana disabled the Truth and Reconciliation as she tried in vain to defend the Pillar of Autumn. The Prophet of Stewardship ordered that plasma torpedoes not be used against the human vessel, as they could potentially damage the Halo; boarding parties were sent instead. After being disabled, the vessel was forced to drop to 300 meters above the surface of the ring for refit and repair.

When Truth and Reconciliation arrived over the surface of Installation 04, it became a command post for the local Covenant ground forces. There, Zuka 'Zamamee sought approval from the Council of Masters, represented by Soha 'Rolamee and the Prophet Stewardship, to hunt SPARTAN John-117, although he was denied permission. As 'Zamamee left, Captain Jacob Keyes, the commanding officer of the Pillar of Autumn, was brought onboard as a prisoner, having been captured earlier that day.

Shortly after Truth and Reconciliation's arrival at Halo, the installation's monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, confronted the vessel's onboard AI about the Covenant's efforts to access quarantined areas and their hostility toward the Reclaimers present. However, Guilty Spark only received confused and cryptic responses from the semi-sentient construct.

Raid on the Truth and Reconciliation


The next day, John-117 led a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers on a mission to infiltrate the Truth and Reconciliation to rescue Captain Keyes. Under the cover of night, the humans fought their way past the Covenant ground defenses and boarded the ship via its gravity lift. Upon entering the ship's gravity lift bay, the humans were ambushed by Covenant security forces.

The SPARTAN and the ODSTs successfully routed the initial lines of resistance and proceeded into the labyrinthine corridors of the ship. The boarders fought their way to the ship's bridge, killing Shipmaster Lat 'Ravamee. After neutralizing the hostiles on the bridge, the Master Chief left the Marines to defend against intruders while he went in search of Captain Keyes in one of the ship's brigs. While making his way to the prison cells, he encountered another prison block that contained dead Marines who were either beaten or tortured to death. Needless to say, he did not find Captain Keyes in this cell block. The Master Chief proceeded to yet another cell block where he found Keyes and several other POWs.

After John rescued Captain Keyes, the former first reprimanded and then thanked the SPARTAN for the rescue. He then informed John and Cortana that he had learned that the ringworld, Halo, was some kind of powerful weapon and that the Covenant were trying to gain control of it. Seconds after their release, the humans were ambushed by Stealth Elites. The SPARTAN, the captain, and the other freed prisoners fought their way back to the bridge, where they found the remaining ODSTs dead. The group made their way to one of Truth and Reconciliation's hangar bays, where Keyes commandeered a Spirit dropship, allowing the surviving humans to escape.

Second raid on the Truth and Reconciliation


On September 21, following the inadvertent release of the Flood, the Covenant leadership ordered all vessels to withdraw from the Halo. However, Truth and Reconciliation had been overwhelmed and disabled by the Flood before it could leave. The Covenant forces were fearful that the Flood would repair the ship, escape the installation, and infect the galaxy. The Covenant sent warriors, including a special operations contingent, to retake the cruiser from the Flood. Amid this battle, John-117 was sent in to find Captain Keyes and extract him, or, failing that, to retrieve the Captain's command neural interface so the Pillar of Autumn's engines could be overloaded by utilizing the access codes found in the captain's implants, thus destroying the ring.

Upon reaching Keyes on the ship's bridge, John discovered that Keyes had been infected by the Flood and had been used as the basis for a Proto-Gravemind. Cortana informed the SPARTAN that no human life signs remained. The Master Chief then punched through Keyes' skull and forcefully removed the neural implants. Shortly thereafter, a Covenant special operations team ambushed the SPARTAN. John then made his way to one of the vessel's hangar bays, where he escaped aboard a Banshee; he then flew to the Pillar of Autumn's crash site.

Around this time, the Truth and Reconciliation's reactor was damaged so severely that Cortana believed that it should have gone critical. However, the ship was repaired by Covenant forces, who managed to repel or destroy the majority of the Flood forms that remained onboard after the Master Chief's departure.

Capture and destruction
After the SPARTAN's second mission to rescue Keyes, the surviving Marine and Naval personnel, spearheaded by the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers under the command of Major Antonio Silva, staged an assault on the Truth and Reconciliation; they quickly captured the ship with minimal casualties through simultaneous surprise attacks on the vessel's primary hangar bay and gravity lift. Major Silva intended to fly the ship back to Earth with the Prophet of Stewardship as a prisoner. The partially infected Private Wallace A. Jenkins had enough remaining mental faculties to attempt to sever the fiber-optic cable that connected the bridge controls with the engineering deck, though he was immediately restrained. A couple of Flood infection forms burst out of the vents, but were quickly put down by the Marines using their MA5B assault rifles. First Lieutenant Melissa McKay realized Jenkins' intentions; she understood that many Flood forms were still present on the ship and would quickly take over Earth if Silva's delusions of grandeur were fulfilled. She then severed the primary optical fiber cable with a fragmentation grenade, thereby causing the cruiser to lose control and crash onto the surface of the Halo. Her actions caused the death of all the humans, Covenant, and Flood on board, whilst likely saving the rest of humanity from infection and annihilation.

Trivia

 * The Truth and Reconciliation shares its name with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was established in South Africa after the fall of Apartheid rule as a means of reparation for oppressed non-whites. Following South Africa's example, numerous Truth and reconciliation commissions have since been established throughout the world.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Combat Evolved
 * Halo: The Flood
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
 * Terminals
 * Halo: Official Spartan Field Manual