Babd Catha Forerunner vessel

"Commander, you're wondering what your SPARTANs died for? They died for this."

- Doctor Catherine Halsey

The Babd Catha Forerunner complex was an ancient Forerunner ship embedded within the Babd Catha Ice Shelf on Reach. Positioned at a tilted angle, the ship was massive and appears to be roughly disk-shaped; as most of it was buried by a glacier, its true size is unknown. Parts of the ship were visible in an ice cavern underneath SWORD Base, as well as a nearby mountain range. The interior of the complex houses a holographic Forerunner data terminal of some kind.

History
It was the home to one of Dr. Catherine Halsey's labs, and had evidently been under excavation by the Office of Naval Intelligence for some time.

According to Dr. Catherine Halsey, the complex held secrets that could turn the tide of the Human-Covenant War — a "latchkey" discovery that Halsey compared to the invention of the conical bullet and the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. However, when the Covenant began attacking the facility on August 29, 2552, the decryption was only partially complete. Using Wolf Spider turrets, Noble Team was able to hold off the Covenant for long enough until Halsey could finish the decryption. The complex, along with Sword Base, was completely destroyed by an explosive charge.

Exactly what data Halsey discovered within the complex was never revealed, but the data apparently contributed to the discovery of Installation 04.

Trivia

 * Paul Russel, an environment artist at Bungie, skinned and built the complex, which he referred to as a "Forerunner ship".
 * The Babd Catha complex marks the second large Forerunner complex on the planet Reach. The fact the structure is actually a ship and at a tilted angle may indicate it crash-landed and later became covered in ice. In a commentary video for the multiplayer map Breakpoint, one of the map's designers presented the idea that the reason for the structure's tilted angle and unusual placement was a result of an accident with teleportation. However, they were quick to denounce the canonicity of the idea, leaving the actual reasons uncertain. In the map of Reach shipped with the Halo: Reach Limited Edition, there are a number of marked artifact sites that seem to form a trail leading from CASTLE Base, the site of the Menachite Forerunner complex, to the immediate region of SWORD Base.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach