Upisa'weri-pattern Shrike

The Upisa'weri-pattern Sky Striker, more commonly known as the Shrike turret, is an automated anti-aerospace weapon emplacement system utilized at sites of significant strategic importance. Produced by numerous manufacturers, Shrikes are used by the Swords of Sanghelios and Jul 'Mdama's Covenant.

Design details
The Shrike is an anti-air turret of Sangheili origin, with numerous variant design patterns produced over the years. The turret consists of a squat, rounded base with a spherical rotating mechanism mounting twin rapid-fire heavy plasma cannons. They were originally designed by the War of Beginnings-era Sangheili, and employ the use of "semi-feral" associated intelligences - an artifice banned by the statues of the San'Shyuum during the reign of the Covenant empire.

Due to the limitations on their use, most Shrikes lay abandoned for the majority of the Covenant's history, leading to their automated systems only being capable of communicating in ancient languages and cannot be understood by modern personnel. Equally, this means that Shrike AIs are unable to properly understand modern IFF systems and codewords - when deployed they must be carefully monitored and locked down due to their potential for error.

Overall, the Shrike's combination of firepower and seemingly-preternatural reaction times make them valuable military assets for the Covenant's successor states - who have pulled them out of old storage units for use in the post-Covenant conflicts.

Variants
Numerous design pattern variants of the Shrike artillery pod have been developed over the years; the Upisa'weri design is only one of these patterns. The older and simpler-to-assemble pattern variants such as the Upisa'weri have been able to easily proliferate in the post-war environment due to existing older stocks inside long-term storage and their easy-to-construct nature making them easy to manufacture in local keep-level Assembly Forges.

Operational history
The Upisa'weri-pattern Shrike was first observed and recorded in the Office of Naval Intelligence's type classification system in 2556. The weapon emplacements were used by both the Swords of Sanghelios and Jul 'Mdama's Covenant throughout the Blooding Years.

In October 2558, several Upisa'weri-pattern Shrikes were utilized by Jul 'Mdama's resurgent Covenant during the Battle of Sunaion as defensive emplacements against the invading Swords of Sanghelios. The UNSC's Fireteam Osiris managed to shut down the turrets on their way to the Guardian near the city, effectively wiping out the Covenant's aerospace defense and allowing the Swords of Sanghelios' fleet to aid the ground forces.

Trivia
A shrike is a family of birds that are renown for impaling their prey on sharp objects to allow them to easily tear apart the flesh into smaller fragments.

List of appearances

 * Halo 5: Guardians