UNSC Pillar of Autumn

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The UNSC Pillar of Autumn is a heavily modified United Nations Space Command Halcyon-class cruiser. It is informally refered to as the Autumn by UNSC personnel or the PoA by Halo players.

The Pillar of Autumn is a relatively small ship for its class, but the reinforced hull and armor place it in a higher tonnage range in the UNSC fleet. Before the modifications to the vessel, the ship was due to be scrapped–the Halcyon-class was widely regarded as a joke by UNSC officers and crewmen. The refitted Pillar of Autumn, however, was one of the most powerful ships available to the UNSC. As of 2552, it was 43 years old.

The Pillar of Autumn was one of few ships which escaped The Battle of Reach. The ship made a slipstream jump to the planet Threshold, the location of Forerunner Installation 04, which the Covenant believed was their religious icon "Halo." The remaining crew believed the jump to be random, in order to avoid leading the Covenant to Earth as per the Cole Protocol; in actuality, the AI Cortana interpreted symbols on a Forerunner artifact into map coordinates. After the crash landing on "Halo" the ship ended up balanced over the side of a cliff. The ODSTs who had escaped the crash landing made a short Pelican flight to the crash site, retrieving supplies and armor in the form of Scorpions and Warthogs. These were taken back to Alpha Base, but during the end of the events on Installation 04, the Master Chief raced to the crash site to try and blow up the "Autumn" and escape the ring-world.

The Pillar of Autumn suffered severe damage from Covenant forces orbiting Threshold and crashed on "Halo". Cortana and the Master Chief manually detonated the ship's nuclear fusion engines in order to destroy "Halo" and prevent Flood from escaping.

As of the time of Halo 2, the Pillar of Autumn is destroyed, along with most of the crew (including Captain Jacob Keyes, Commanding Officer of the Pillar of Autumn).

Armament


The Autumn was upgraded with a special improved nuclear fusion engine that featured two small reactors around a larger reactor, capable of boosting output power by 310%. It was also upgraded with a new cooling system, replacing pipes of coolant with "a laser-induced optical slurry of ions chilled to near-absoute zero to neutralize the waste heat," meaning that instead of relying on a limited and depletable amount of chemical temperature-control agents, the advanced engines provided power for cooling themselves, supplying more colling power as more waste-heat was produced and more engine power was used. A very efficient, self-supplying and self-regulating system that gave Captain Keyes new options and tactics to use in battle, previously limited due to concerns of overheating and slagging the ship's engines.

There are 40 50mm auto cannons for point defense, and 1 MAC Cannon capable of firing three "shredder shots" on a single charge. There are also 4 Shiva Missiles and 128 Archer missile pods, each with 30 missiles. The Autumn is capable of firing over 1000 missiles at once, leaving at least 2840 more.

Pg. 272 of "The Fall of Reach" mentions Captain Keyes performing a fly-by inspection of the starboard shuttle bay and seeing Archer Missile Pods counting thirty pods across and ten pods down, making for 300 Archer Missile Pods, and as is also mentioned in the next sentence "Each pod held dozens of missiles," in just one section of the Pillar of Autumn's Armament, suggesting the count of 128 Archer Missile Pods with 30 missiles each to be a severe under-estimation of the ships missile capabilities.

In the beginning cutscene, 11 Longswords can be seen flying escort around the Pillar of autumn, and one is still in Hangar bay seven, bringing that number up to 12, a whole squadron. In this hangar, there are as many as 16 Pelican hangars, and four Scorpion tanks can be counted, as well as an unknown number of warthogs. When the Marines raid the ship on page 136-138 of Halo: The Flood, they liberate 4 Scorpion Tanks, 26 Warthog-Trailer Combos, "more rolling off the ship," 2 Warthogs flown off by Pelicans, and a total of 34 vehicles in the convoy, bringing the Warthog total to 32 in this action, the 34 total having 4 Scorpions, and the additional two having been flown off to battles elsewhere. Platoon Leader Oros mentions asking the Pelicans to bring back 15 Warthog capable personnel, alloing him to squeeze additional 'Hogs into the convoy and put at least two people on each tank, meaning that there were 3-2 additional warthogs, bringing the total to 35. An additional bay with 6 Warthogs is shown in the Maw, plus 1 Warthog used in the second level and a crashed Warthog outside the Maw-Bay, brings the total to 43+ Warthogs.



Pillar of Autumn Command Crew

 * Captain Jacob Keyes --  Ship Captain
 * Cortana --  Shipboard AI
 * Lieutenant Dominique --  Communications Officer
 * Lieutenant Aki Hikowa --  Weapons Officer
 * Lieutenant Hall --  Operations Officer
 * Ensign William Michael Lovell --  Navigation Officer
 * Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy --  Chief Engineer
 * Abiad
 * Wang
 * Singh

Other Naval Personnel

 * Tech Chief Thom Shepard --  Cryogenics Technician
 * Tech Officer First Class Mary Murphy --  Air Traffic Technician
 * Tech Officer Sam Marcus --  Cryogenics Technician
 * Petty Officer Third Class Pauley --  Radio Technician
 * Petty Officer Third Class Cho --  Radio Technician
 * Flight Officer Captain Carol "Foehammer" Rawley --  Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant "Cookie" Peterson --  Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant Rick Hale --  Pelican Pilot
 * Flight Officer Mitchell --  Pelican Pilot
 * Warrant Officer Shiela Polaski --  Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant Frye --  Pelican Co-Pilot
 * Crew Chief Cullen --  Pelican Communications Officer

Individuals

 * Private Bisenti
 * Company Sergeant Tink Carter
 * Sergeant Corly
 * Second Lieutenant Dalu
 * Private Chipps Dubbo
 * Private First Class M. Fitzgerald
 * Lieutenant Haverson
 * Private First Class Hosky
 * Private First Class Wallace A. Jenkins
 * Sergeant Johnson
 * Lance Corporal "Snaky" Jones
 * Private Kappus
 * Master Sergeant Lister
 * Corporal Locklear
 * Corporal Lovik
 * First Lieutenant Melissa McKay
 * Private Manuel Mendoza
 * Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto
 * Private O'Brien
 * Second Lieutenant Oros
 * Sergeant Parker
 * Private Marie Postly
 * Private Riley
 * Private Satha
 * Major Antonio Silva
 * Sergeant Stacker
 * Gunnery Sergeant Waller
 * Corporal Wilkins
 * Al-Thani
 * Dawkins
 * Medic "Doc" Valdez
 * Murphy
 * Suzuki

Units

 * Twenty-Second Tactical
 * Fire Team Charlie
 * Fire Team Zulu
 * Fourteenth Platoon

Others

 * Spartan-058
 * Spartan-117
 * Wellsley (A.I.)

Engine Room
The Pillar of Autumn's engine room is a large area in the POA which houses it's engines. Known as just "Engineering", it is located near an armory. The room consists of three floors. The third floor has two catwalks connected by a hall in the center of the room. Under the catwalks and above the second floor are six "manifolds". Inside each manifold is an engine core. The manifolds can be pulled back by a control panel on the catwalks exposing a vent which contains the core. In Halo: Combat Evolved, the Master Chief and Cortana detonate the engine cores in this room to destroy Alpha Halo. 343 Guilty Spark, Sentinels, and numerous Flood were also present at the time.

In Halo: The Fall of Reach, the Autumn was described to have only three fusion reactors, a main reactor and two smaller reactors. When these reactors magnetic fields overlapped, it created a type of super-charger that could boost reactor output substantially. It is unknown if these engine cores are the same as the three fusion reactors and if so, there is is an unknown fourth reactor.

Trivia

 * The Autumn is approximately 1.17 km long. This is, however, contradictory to the final level of Halo: Combat Evolved, in which you must drive along a service coridor which runs the length of the ship, and is about 3 km long. This was probably for the sake of building tension and atmosphere that the Maw Run generates.
 * The sides of the Autumn have a Marathon logo in them. The ship's official emblem has a Marathon logo as well.
 * In the first level of Halo: Combat Evolved, before you get to Keyes, look at the bulletin board next to the entrance of the Bridge. It contains funny and amusing magazine clips.