United Nations Space Command

The United Nations Space Command (UNSC) is the military, exploratory, and scientific agency of the United Earth Government (UEG). The UNSC was formed in the 2160's, during a period where remnants of old cultural ideologies clashed for supremacy in the Sol System. The UNSC served mainly as overseer of United Nations military operations in space. After initiating massive militarization propaganda throughout its off-world colonies, through the UNSC, the UN defeated Communist and Fascist forces in a conflict generally known as the "Interplanetary War", which consisted of several side-battles that took place on Mars, the Jovian Moons and the South American rain forests. Although the Interplanetary War brought a great deal of suffering to both the colonial population and the residents of Earth, it also united humanity's military forces into a common armed force by the end of the 22nd century.

Prior to the Covenant's attack on Harvest in 2525, humanity was in chaos, fighting in multiple fronts, on planets, against a group known as the Insurrectionists who wanted independence from the United Earth Government. The UNSC, more specifically, the UNSCDF, constantly battled against the Insurrectionists. In an attempt to help end the long running war against the Insurrectionists and rebels, the UEG commissioned the SPARTAN-II Project, which created elite super-soldiers to combat separatists and the insurrections they spawned. When the Covenant-Human War began and the alien invaders began decimating the Outer Colonies, these Spartans became humanity's best hope against the technological superiority of the aliens. When the war began, the UNSC truly became humanity's greatest (and arguably only) defender. This fact allowed the UNSC to override civilian rule and establish itself as humanity's primary government. Although the United Earth Government was more open to step down, the Colonial Administration, the arm of the UEG ruling over the colonies, resisted the UNSC's rise to power, and was thus stripped of its power.

By 2552 A.D., Earth was the last remaining major Human bastion; and fell under attack by Covenant forces. The Human-Covenant War finally came to an end after a UNSC and Covenant Separatists force eliminated the Covenant leadership and destroyed the Flood threat.

By the time the war began, humanity, and thus the UNSC, had reached Tier 3 of the Forerunner civilization achievement rank system. Humanity’s rank continued to rise due to the capture of Covenant technology and equipment, which was studied and adapted for human needs. The very best and cutting edge of UNSC equipment was supplied to the SPARTAN-II Project. One such example of imitative human technology is the energy shielding adapted for use on the MJOLNIR armor.

During the First and Second Battle of Earth, the UNSC fought the Covenant Loyalists on Earth to prevent humanity's extinction, and eventually won their right to survive thanks to an alliance with the Covenant Separatists.

Background
The United Nations Space Command was formed by the United Nations during the Interplanetary War. After the UNSC victory, overpopulation on Earth became a major issue in the early 22nd century. This issue was resolved and disaster averted by colonizing and building vast cities on other planets in the Orion Arm of the galaxy, the Inner Colonies and later the Outer Colonies.

The UNSC's defensive military force is the UNSC Defense Force (UNSCDF), and consists of the UNSC Air Force, the UNSC Army, the UNSC Marine Corps and the UNSC Navy.

Interplanetary War
The UNSC has its roots in World War II, which would form its parent organization, the United Nations. The UNSC was actually formed and fashioned as the result of a series of brutal conflicts across the Solar System and Humanity's space confines between 2160 and 2164, most prominently among them the Jovian Moons Campaign, The Rain Forest Wars, and a series of battles on Mars. The United Nations Space Command, as organized and orchestrated as it seems is actually an emergency military government formed in such strife. These encounters were centered, around UN clashes with dissident political movements, the most important of which were the "Koslovics" and the "Frieden". More specifically, the Frieden movement was a fascist organization based on the Jovian Moons, though they received backing from some corporations operating in the United German Republic on Earth, while their ideological opponents, the Koslovics, formed a Marxist-Leninist group centered around the leadership of Vladimir Koslov.

The war began with an attack on UN Colonial Advisers on the moon of Io, one of the moons of Jupiter, but would spread to Mars and parts of South America in the Rain Forest Wars. These events culminated in a UN buildup in the 2160s, which would result in the second of the great reforms, the first being from the league of nations into the UN. The second reformed the UN from a largely diplomatic organization to a permanent United Earth Government as an ultimate power to lead the human race by 2170.

Colonization
The four-year long war put the spotlight on problems facing the overpopulated planet, and the Rain Forest Wars also exacerbated the problems relating to food distribution. The ensuing famine and societal problems related to the post-war population boom providing the spark to change the political nature of governance on Earth and elsewhere, leading to the political system seen in the 26th Century.

These pressures also helped make space colonization seem more attractive in later centuries, as the Unified Earth Government would sign off on a colony ship program that was revealed in 2310 to ease the burden on the ailing home world. This would not have been possible without the invention of the Slipspace Shaw-Fujikawa drive in the late 2200's, which allowed the ships to travel far greater distances than ever before.

It took 52 years before the first colony ship, the Odyssey, was launched, and what became the so-called Inner Colonies were not fully colonized until the end of the 24th century. The apex of human colonization would come in 2492, when more then 800 worlds were under human control and were at various stages of development. By this time, a ring of Outer Colonies was providing the UEG with the raw materials that made the macro-economy work; the political power, however, remained with the before mentioned Inner Colonies. The massive difference in wealth distribution and political power, which became a hallmark of humanity by this period, led to new threats of secession from the outer ring. Fearing the consequences of the breakup of the interstellar empire and seeing the benefits of avoiding all-out war to defend their hold on the colonies, the Earth government would embark on the Spartan-Is, the predecessors to the SPARTAN-II program in 2491, beginning with the ORION Project.

The Human-Covenant War
2525 marked the most important turning point in human history; it would mark the beginning of the great technological advancement, the unification of a divided and fractured human race, and the first contact of humanity and an extra-terrestrial intelligence, the Covenant. It would also see a majority of the Earth government's over 800 colony worlds glassed, and billions of colonists and military personnel slaughtered by orbital plasma bombardment and planetary invasion, known as glassing. Thus began the Human-Covenant War with the First Battle of Harvest.

Stemming from the chance encounter of Human and Covenant forces at Harvest, the first contact made between humanity and the Covenant involved the ship Minor Transgression, and was less peaceful than the second contact made between the two factions. A less aggressive meeting between representatives of the two factions took place on the fields of Harvest, but the peaceful meeting soon turned into a blood bath, with the Covenant claiming the planet for the numerous "Forerunner relics" present, slaughtering most of the colony's population.

On April 20, a scout ship, Argo, was sent to investigate the cessation of communications between Harvest and the rest of the UEG's colonies. Before being destroyed by Covenant forces, it discovered that everything on the planet had been completely incinerated, and the surface covered by fields of magma, leaving nothing alive. Soon after the Heracles battle group, consisting of the frigates Arabia and Vostok and the destroyer Heracles, was sent to find out what had happened. On October 7, the battle group dropped out of Slipspace and to Harvest. In orbit around the remains of the colony world was a single alien ship which proceeded to attack the battle group, destroying all the ships except one. Intercepted communications identify the enemy as the Covenant, a caste-driven, theological organization made up of several alien species. The message "Your destruction is the will of the gods... and we are their instrument" was broadcast in perfect English.

Since the later Second Battle of Harvest in 2526, where a huge human fleet led by Vice Admiral Preston Cole barely won against a smaller Covenant fleet in a symbolic "victory" for humanity, the humans' grip on their territories declined significantly in the course of their struggle. Of the more than 800 colony worlds, the Covenant had managed to capture the majority, if not all of the Outer Colonies, and a portion of the Inner Colonies.

By this time, the United Nations Space Command overrode the UEG, and thus the central civilian authority throughout the human worlds and Earth itself. Although the central government was more willing to step down, the Colonial Administration was far more reluctant to this idea, and thus the UNSC stripped it of most of its power. By the middle to late stages of the war, the government of humanity could be more accurately described as an "emergency military" government.

By 2552, the UNSC Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and Militia, outnumbered and out-gunned, had managed to slow down the Covenant's inexorable progress through former human space, but the situation was dire. In desperation, HIGHCOM ordered a high-risk Op, sending the Spartan-II super soldiers, the best soldiers ever fielded by humanity, to insert into Covenant space, capture a high-ranking Prophet, and return to UNSC space in an attempt to ransom for a truce. Before the operation began, the Covenant found and destroyed the planet Reach, killing most of the Spartans and a large portion of the UNSCDF, inadvertently stopping the operation and rendering most of the Spartans MIA. This became known as the battle of Reach

A single ship, the Pillar of Autumn managed to escape the planet, with two Spartans on board, Linda, who was presumably dead in the Battle of Reach and the Master Chief. The ship followed co-ordinates derived by the AI Cortana to a Ring-world known as Halo. There the Master Chief destroyed a large Covenant fleet and the ringworld itself. He also encountered a parasitic lifeform known as the Flood, the species that the ring, Halo, had been built to starve. The major side-effect of the activation of the ring would lead to the extinction of all life within three radii of the galactic centre. The Master Chief destroyed the ring, believing it to be too powerful, by detonation of the reactor of the Pillar of Autumn. After hijacking a Covenant Flagship known as Ascendant Justice, the Spartan reunited with the remaining survivors from Halo and the destruction of Reach and attacked a force of Covenant ships in Operation: FIRST STRIKE, one of the most successful UNSC operations against the Covenant in the entire war.

By October of 2552, the Covenant had haphazardly discovered the position of the human home world, Earth, and sent a preliminary task force there, believing it to be the location of the Ark, an ancient Forerunner relic. They encountered staunch resistance, and were initially fended off. Further complications arose from the political and religious crisis that emerged in the wake of a UNSC operation to assassinate the Prophet of Regret, and the secession of the Sangheli from the hegemony, leading to the Covenant Civil War, further throwing the Covenant into chaos. Nevertheless, by November, what was left of the Covenant Loyalists had subjugated large parts of Africa, devastating much of the planet. Only their retreat through a Forerunner portal in Africa, and the arrival of the Sangheili Fleet, stopped the utter destruction of the UNSC and Earth itself.

The UNSC and Elite forces launched a joint operation to destroy the Covenant Loyalists once and for all at the Ark, stopping the installation from firing the Halo Array, killing the Covenant's last remaining leader, the Prophet of Truth, and destroying the bulk of the Loyalists' remaining forces. On March 3, 2553, the Human-Covenant War officially ended in a victory for the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists, but at a high price, with most major military outposts destroyed except for Earth as well as many colonies (although it seems that most of the colony worlds were not glassed during the war, with only seventy-six worlds known to have been totally destroyed). It is presumed that millions of UNSC personnel and untold billions of human civilians had been killed from 2525-2553.

Organization
Unified Earth Government or United Nations
 * Colonial Administration Authority
 * Central Command (CENTCOM)
 * United Nations Space Command Defense Force
 * High Command (HIGHCOM)
 * UNSC Security Committee
 * UNSC Security Council
 * Administrative
 * Personnel Command (PERSCOM)
 * Navigation Command (NAVCOM)
 * UNSC Astrophysics
 * UNSC Medical Corps (MEDCORPS)
 * UNSC Engineering Corps (ENGCORP)
 * UNSC Logistical Corps
 * UNSC Test and Evaluation Corps
 * UNSC Ordnance Committee
 * Uniformed Services
 * UNSC Navy
 * Fleet Command (FLEETCOM)
 * Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
 * Office of Investigations (OI)
 * '''Prowler Corps
 * Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR)
 * Project ORION
 * Project SPARTAN-I
 * Project SPARTAN-II
 * Beta-5 Division
 * Project SPARTAN-III
 * Signal Corps
 * UNSC Marine Corps
 * UNSC Marine Infantry
 * UNSC Marine Aviation
 * UNSC Marine Logistics
 * UNSC Marine Military Police
 * UNSC Marine Special Operations
 * Orbital Drop Shock Troopers
 * UNSC Army
 * UNSC Army Infantry
 * UNSC Colonial Militia
 * UNSC Air Force
 * Other
 * UNSC Symphony Orchestra
 * Commerce
 * Department of Commercial Shipping

Economy
The UNSC uses the United Nations Credit monetary unit to organize its economical stability by selling or buying military equipment, supplies and costs for shipping etc. The UN Credit was implemented by the United Nations, some time before  its dissolution and replacement with the United Earth Government in 2164. For transporting food and raw materials between colonies, the UNSC maintains a merchant navy, run by the Department of Commercial Shipping.

Military


The UNSC's military arm is the United Nations Space Command Defense Force, which is divided into the UNSC Army, the UNSC Air Force, the UNSC Navy, and the UNSC Marine Corps. The Defense Force took control of the UNSC during the Human-Covenant War.

The UNSCDF is run by the UNSC Security Council, with the professional head being UNSC High Command, and is the Human on Earth's main military force, most recently fighting the Covenant. The Navy houses the divisions of UNSC Marines (including the special forces branch of the UNSC Marines known as Orbital Drop Shock Troopers more commonly know as ODSTs or "Helljumpers"), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and the Fleet. The UNSC Army and UNSC Air Force maintain garrisons on colony worlds. When certain rebellious factions began to rise in the late 2510s, the UNSC was forced to police its protected colonies tirelessly to keep privateers and pirates from raiding the colonies and any UNSC ships.

A great number of Defense Force ships and soldiers were lost during the Human-Covenant War.

Unlike the Covenant, UNSC military technology is still based on comparatively primitive mechanisms - projectile weaponry, wheeled vehicles, and combustion engines. The UNSC's grasp of scientific concepts is far more advanced than the Covenant, but turning these concepts into functional machinery has proven more problematic. Recently, the UNSC has introduced a variety of Covenant-derived technologies into their arsenal: gravity plating aboard ships, energy shields to protect Spartan-II soldiers, and limited use of directed energy weapons, usually lasers, for example, the Spartan Laser, though the Covenant still retain their technological advantage.

UNSC starship weaponry is based around missiles and Magnetic Accelerator Cannons. Their technological inferiority in the face of the Covenant means that it was often necessary for the UNSC to have a three-to-one numerical advantage against them in ship-to-ship combat. The UNSC also possesses weapons of mass destruction in the form of the NOVA Bomb.

Sphere of Influence
UNSC territory is known to encompass several dozen worlds in several star systems, in various stages of colonization, from the well developed Inner Colonies to the relatively recent and struggling Outer Colonies. Though there were over 800 Human colonies before the War, only 38 have been referenced The territory encompassed by the Inner Colonies seems to stretch in at least a 10.5 lightyear radius around Earth, and the Outer Colonies beyond that. By 2468, the outermost colony was Harvest, at 11 lightyears from Earth - later, colonies were founded well beyond in the Outer Colonies. The furthest known UNSC colony is Beta Centauri, at 525 light years away. Colonies may have been settled after Harvest, or founded during the Human-Covenant War.

Colony Systems, Worlds, and Cities
Sol System
 * Earth - Homeworld to Humanity
 * Asia
 * Micronesia
 * China
 * Japan
 * Mongolia
 * Pakistan
 * Africa
 * Cairo
 * East African Protectorate
 * Republic of Kenya
 * Mombasa
 * New Mombasa
 * Old Mombasa
 * Voi
 * United Republic of Tanzania
 * Zanzibar Island
 * Korea
 * Kyonggi Province
 * Songnam
 * Special Warfare Center
 * Commonwealth of Australia
 * Sydney, Australia
 * HighCom Facility Bravo-6
 * Sydney Synthetic Intellect Institute
 * Diego Garcia
 * Republic of Cuba
 * Havana
 * Centennial Orbital Elevator
 * Republic of Chile
 * United Republic of North America
 * Mexico
 * Mexico City
 * Base Segundo Terra
 * Canada
 * United States of America
 * New York
 * New York City
 * New Jersey
 * Unit 216
 * Newark
 * Cleveland, Ohio
 * Old Cleveland
 * Oregon
 * Salem
 * Illinois
 * Chicago
 * Industrial Zone 08
 * Gut Check
 * Rebound
 * Severe Tire Damage
 * The Seropian
 * Halsted Street
 * Indiana
 * Boston, Massachusetts
 * Chawla Base
 * Commonwealth of Kentucky
 * Great Lakes
 * Lake Michigan
 * Great Lakes Spaceport
 * Cottage Grove Terminal
 * Minnesota
 * Wisconsin
 * Switzerland
 * United Kingdom
 * Great Britain
 * London
 * Islington
 * Birmingham
 * Doncaster
 * Sheffield
 * Bristol
 * Cheshire
 * Leeds
 * Plymouth
 * Portsmouth
 * Reading
 * Romford
 * Scotland
 * Edinburgh
 * Federal Republic of Germany
 * Essen
 * Beweglichrüstungsysteme
 * UNSC Symphony Hall
 * Luna
 * Luna OCS Academy
 * Mars
 * Chiron
 * Argyre Planitia
 * Reyes-McLees Shipyards
 * Katagalugan
 * New Legaspi
 * New Manila
 * Mare Erythraeum
 * Jupiter
 * Jovian Moons
 * Ganymede
 * Aigburth
 * Lister
 * Io
 * Io Station
 * Europa

Epsilon Eridani System Sigma Octanus System Lambda Serpentis System Zeta Doradus System Epsilon Indi System Chi Ceti System Hellespont System Eridanus System Groombridge 34 System - Status Unknown Charybdis System 111 Tauri System Jericho System - Status Unknown Tantalus - Status Unknown Procyon System Ectanus 45 System 23 Librae System
 * Reach - Primary military installation. Was glassed by the Covenant in 2552.
 * Highland Mountains
 * CASTLE Base
 * Camp Hathcock
 * Camp Independence
 * Fairchild Field
 * HighCom Armory Omega
 * Military Reservation 01478-B
 * Military Wilderness Training Preserve
 * ODG Facility A-331
 * Olympic Tower
 * Reach Station Gamma
 * Reach Naval Academy
 * Ehilend - natural orbiting satellite
 * Beta Gabriel
 * Tribute
 * Casbah
 * Circumstance
 * Sigma Octanus IV - Still held by the UNSC even though it was attacked in 2552 by the Covenant.
 * Côte d'Azur
 * Jericho VII - Glassed in 2535
 * Onyx - Obliterated (Core still intact)
 * Camp Currahee
 * Zone 67
 * Harvest - Glassed by Covenant in 2525
 * Utgard
 * Utgard Highway
 * Gladsheim
 * Gladsheim Highway
 * Chi Ceti 4 - Status Unknown (possibly abandoned or glassed at a later date)
 * Damascus Testing Facility
 * Troy - Glassed in 2537
 * Harmony - Glassed in 2537
 * New Harmony - Status Unknown (Presumed Glassed)
 * Eridanus II - Glassed in 2530
 * Elysium City
 * Luxor Spaceport
 * Station Delphi
 * Charybdis IX - Glassed
 * Scyllion
 * Victoria - Unknown
 * Arcadia - Glassed in 2549
 * Chi Rho - Status Unknown
 * Madrigal - Glassed in 2528

Other Colonies
 * Ariel - Unknown
 * Atlas Moons - still held by UNSC
 * Ballast - Unknown status
 * Beta Centauri - Unknown status
 * Biko - Glassed in 2525
 * Coral - Attacked by Covenant in 2552, Unknown status
 * Crystal - still held by UNSC
 * Durban
 * Draco III - Glassed
 * Dwarka - Glassed
 * Emerald Cove - Glassed in 2542
 * Far Isle - Unknown status
 * Gilgamesh - Unknown
 * Green Hills - Glassed in 2525
 * Hydra System - Unknown
 * Mamore - Still held by UNSC
 * Mariposa - Unknown status
 * Minister - Still held by UNSC
 * Miridem - Unknown status
 * New Constantinople - Glassed
 * Paris IV - Glassed
 * Second Base - Glassed in 2525

UNSC bases
 * Fort York
 * Fort Deen
 * Roosevelt Military Base
 * Crow's Nest
 * Firebase Bravo
 * Camp Hathcock
 * Camp Independence
 * Chawla Base
 * Diego Garcia
 * Segundo Terra
 * Camp Currahee
 * Outpost C9
 * Rat's Nest

Nations
Information suggests that at least some nations on Earth still exist and probably maintained their independence despite the global unification that was performed by the UN, UNSC and Unified Earth Government in the 22nd century during the Interplanetary War.

Trivia

 * The UNSC is the navigation and military arm of the Unified Earth Government and the Colonial Administration Authority, thus it does not administrate the colonies without the consensus of the CAA or the UEG.
 * The UNSC was accidentally referred to as the "USNC" in the book Halo: Ghosts of Onyx as well as in the book Halo: The Flood, leading to numerous mistakes throughout the community.
 * In real life, UNSC is an acronym for the United Nations Security Council. Additionally, the United Nations Space Command Marine Corps has an ostensible inspiration from the real world USMC, the United States Marine Corps.
 * The majority of UNSC vehicles are named after animals that live on the planet Earth, such as the Pelican, the Mongoose, Warthog, Scorpion and Albatross, with the exceptions of course being the 'Longsword', 'Shortsword', and large spacecraft.
 * Despite being titled as Earth's Defense force, the only accents ever heard from the Marines in-game are American, Mexican, British, and Australian.