UNSC Infinity

The UNSC Infinity (INF-101) is the experimental flagship of the UNSC Navy commissioned following the end of the Human-Covenant War. Built in secret using technology recovered from Forerunner and Covenant sources during the war, the Infinity is the UNSC's largest and most advanced warship to date. Infinity serves under the direction of Fleet Command and is captained by Thomas Lasky, who was handpicked by Admiral Margaret Parangosky, Commander in Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

The first ship of her class, Infinity was secretly deployed in combat in March 2553. On February 28, 2557, the vessel was officially recommissioned after being refitted with technology that would add scientific and diplomatic endeavors to her capabilities. By February 2558, Infinity had a crew of 17,151 sailors, Marines, ONI operatives, and civilian personnel, as well as numerous adjunct members of the other UNSCDF branches and a number of Huragok specialists. The Infinity is escorted by a formation of twenty to forty vessels, consisting of s, s, and ten internally docked s.  The primary shipboard AI is Roland.

Hull and propulsion
From stem to stern, the Infinity has a length of 5,694.2 meters (18,681.6 feet), a beam of 833.3 meters (2,733.9 feet), and a height of 1,041.2 meters (3,415.9 feet). This makes her the largest warship the UNSC Navy has ever commissioned. Aside from various Forerunner vessels, her length is surpassed only by the Covenant's gargantuan 29-kilometer. Infinity is considerably larger than the previous UNSC record holders such as the supercarriers and s.

Her hull is comprised of 4.9 meters of titanium-A3 armor. The ship also possesses energy shields, making her the first UNSC ship known to be fitted with shielding systems. The combination of armor and shields shields is strong enough to withstand direct impact with an enormous Covenant cruiser, perhaps an RCS or Reverence class, while sustaining negligible damage. The ship's sublight power plant is a XR2 Boglin Fields: S81/X deuterium fusion reactor. Translight power is provided by a Mark X Macedon/Z-PROTOTYPE #78720HDS mounted on a remote carriage.

Crew and complement
As of February 2558, Infinity had a crew an official complement of 17,151. This included 8,954 Navy personnel, 6,021 Marines, 1,699 Naval Intelligence agents, and 477 civilians. She also has a large number of SPARTAN-IV, Army, and Air Force personnel, who are evidently not listed among the ship's regular complement.

Mass deployment is realized through a large number of bays located throughout the vessel. Infinity has 275 Cat-1 primary bays, 140 Cat-2 secondary bays, 108 Cat-3 matériel deployment bays, and ten Cat-8 sub-vessel deployment bays: the last of these each carries a. Single deployment is afforded by 329 R1295 Launching System/M9407 SOEIVs and 124 B854 Jettison Bays/M8823 HEVs. Emergency escape vehicles include 8,900 SKT-29 Class-8 Enclosed Heavy Lifeboats/Controlled and 12,750 RLT-85 Emergency Shuttlpods.

Armament
The Infinity ' s primary armament is four CR-03, Series-8 magnetic accelerator cannons. Infinity boasts a significant missile network that can be implemented for ship-to-ship combat, and anti-air defense, orbital gunfire support for Marine forces, among other uses. Emplaced throughout the ship are 1,100 missile pods of three types: Archer, Rapier, and Howler. The M42 Archer missile provides secondary armament for Infinity with 350 pods that can launch 24 missiles simultaneously. Additional missiles include the M75 Rapier (250x30 missiles) and the M96 Howler (500x20 missiles). Close-in defense against enemy missiles, fighters, and boarding craft is the primary mission of the M965 Fortress point defense network, a series of 830 70mm automatic cannons. At least one smaller MAC, similar to the Mark 2488 Onager, is mounted on the dorsal hull.

Construction
The ship was constructed in the Oort cloud surrounding the Sol system, with construction beginning circa 2537. Secrecy was ensured by having workers permanently stationed there over several years with a total communications blackout in effect. The ship's massive building expenditures, however, prevented ONI from keeping the Infinity a complete secret. Many senior members of the Admiralty, such as Rear Admiral Saeed Shafiq of UNSC Procurement, are fully aware of the ship's existence. This later developed into the Fleet, rather than Naval Intelligence, taking control of the vessel. Andrew Del Rio took command of the Infinity and her pre-commission crew years prior to the end of major hostilities in the war, though CINCONI Margaret Parangosky expected Commander Thomas Lasky to eventually supplant Del Rio.

As of March 2553, technology discovered on Trevelyan, a shield world located in the Zeta Doradus system, was planned to be incorporated into the ship. Huragok assistance in refining the ship's slipspace navigation capabilities, in particular, were expected to push the final construction milestones far ahead of schedule. Unlike older warships which had only areas such as a gym or hangar space for Marines and Spartans to train in, the Infinity is the first known vessel to include a state-of-the-art virtual reality combat deck capable of replicating environments from across the galaxy using holography and pneumatic riser fields.

Trials
With the additional upgrades from Trevelyan, the first space trials of the Infinity were undertaken in March 2553 with Del Rio at the helm. A number of SPARTAN-IVs were assigned to the Infinity before her maiden voyage. Additional Spartans were included in the ship's contingent as time progressed.

Action on Sanghelios
During the Sangheili civil war, the Infinity arrived and destroyed several of the vessels assaulting Vadam Keep.

First tour on Requiem
The UNSC commissioned the Infinity into service on February 28, 2557. After an ONI team at Ivanoff Station vanished while researching a Forerunner artifact known as the Composer, the ship's crew learned the location of the shield world Requiem. During the approach to Requiem, Infinity picked up a distress call from the and her two surviving crew, Spartan MCPO John-117 and his smart AI companion Cortana. During the attempted rescue, the ship's control systems were hacked by the Didact, the leader of the Forerunners' Promethean Warrior-Servants, and promptly crash-landed on the shield world's surface. The Master Chief rallied scattered reconnaissance personnel and was soon reunited with Commander Lasky, whom he had met decades prior during the Battle of Circinius IV.

Promethean and Covenant remnant forces boarded Infinity while the Didact scoured the ship's mainframe; though the ship's crew did not know at the time, he was searching for the location of a Forerunner weapon known as the Composer. The Master Chief quickly brought Infinity ' s point defenses back online, enabling her to destroy two s and to drive off the Didact's Cryptum. Commander Lasky then told John that Infinity ' s mission was to find the remaining Halos so they could be studied and dismantled: Installation 03 and Installation 05 had already been secured. Shortly thereafter, Captain Del Rio ordered that Gypsy Company neutralize a network of particle cannons that were suppressing UNSC aircraft in the area; this would allow an approach to the gravity well generator that was keeping Infinity inside the shield world, which in turn would allow the ship to return to Earth to report their findings.

After their return to the ship, John-117 and Cortana told Del Rio that they had encountered an imprint of the Librarian; John insisted that the ship pursue the Didact before he could leave Requiem. Dismissing their claims as the result of rampancy and age, Del Rio ordered that Cortana be removed from service after she temporarily disabled some of the ship's systems. The Master Chief refused and the bridge crew defied the captain's order to arrest the Spartan. Lasky then provided John a Pelican gunship under the guise that it would be used to apprehend the the Spartan. Just before the Didact's Cryptum could be rendered vulnerable to Infinity, a fit of rampancy caused Cortana to release the orb from its impromptu containment structure. This allowed the Cryptum to interface with the Didact's ship, Mantle's Approach, after which the Didact set course for Installation 03. Del Rio gave the order for Infinity to travel back to Earth, while John and Cortana pursued the Didact aboard a Covenant Lich.

Earth
Upon Infinity's return to Earth, Del Rio was relieved of command due to his abandonment of the Master Chief on Requiem. Lasky took over as commanding officer, just as Admiral Parangosky had planned. In the meantime, the Didact acquired the Composer from Ivanoff Station near Installation 03 and integrated it into Mantle's Approach. When the ship arrived in Earth's orbit, Infinity stood ready as the flagship of Battlegroup Dakota, a detachment of the UNSC Home Fleet. SPARTAN-117 informed now-Captain Lasky that he intended to detonate a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon inside Mantle's Approach, preventing the Composer from being fired against Earth. Once the ship's point-defense guns were neutralized, Infinity used two of her primary MACs to blast holes in the opposing vessel's hull. The Master Chief used one of these openings to enter the ship and eventually defeated the Didact, though not before the Composer digitized the residents of New Phoenix, Arizona, URNA. The ship was destroyed at the cost of Cortana's life. A Pelican was dispatched to retrieve the Spartan, who then spoke with Captain Lasky before having his armor removed on S Deck for the first time in almost five years.

Second tour on Requiem
On February 3, 2558, Infinity returned to Requiem to clear territory for UNSC research bases. The ship and her Charon-class "sub-vessels" quickly dispatched a small Covenant task force stationed at the entrance portal and deployed numerous dropships through the opening. A massive joint effort comprising the Navy, Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Spartans began securing areas on the surface from Covenant garrison forces. After a short span of time, Spartan Fireteam Crimson secured a Forerunner artifact from an area known as "the Cauldron" and brought it aboard the ship. When the artifact began disrupting Infinity's power, artificial gravity, and propulsion, Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer shut it off with a kick. Palmer, Captain Lasky, and Chief Engineer Dr. Glassman then inspected the artifact. Palmer saved Lasky's life, though Glassman was seemingly digitized much like the effect of the Composer.

Senior staff

 * Captain Thomas Lasky — Commanding officer (July 2557 — present); formerly executive officer (2552-July 2557)
 * Commander Sarah Palmer — Commander, Infinity Spartan Forces
 * Armstrong — Executive petty officer
 * Master Chief Petty Officer Jonathan Lowell

Former

 * Captain Andrew Del Rio — Commanding officer (2552 to July 2557)
 * Dr. Glassman — Chief engineer (2553 to February 2558)

Junior officers

 * Lieutenant Austen — Principal weapons officer
 * Lieutenant Cameron
 * Lieutenant Priselkov
 * Lieutenant Junior Grade Campbell

Science personnel

 * Dr. Catherine Halsey
 * Dr. Morgan Rivera
 * Dr. Taylor Pierce

Crewmen

 * Petty Officer Richardson
 * Wolfkill

Marines

 * Paolo J. Jiminez† (killed July 2557)
 * Master Sergeant Marcus P. Stacker
 * Sergeant Virgil Bernardin
 * Private First Class Forrest
 * Private Ted Brown
 * Private Gordon Cooper
 * Private Fred Gordon

Production notes
This advanced ship plays a major role in Halo 4, serving as the fictional backdrop for War Games and Spartan Ops, the competitive multiplayer and episodic cooperative campaign modes in the appropriately named Infinity section. War Games, in which players take control of SPARTAN-IV supersoldiers serving aboard the warship, train against one another in the ship's environment-replicating combat deck. Spartan Ops puts up to four players in the role of Majestic Squad in a series of weekly episodic campaign missions following the ongoing story of the Infinity and her crew.

The webseries Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn chronicles the early military career of Thomas Lasky; Lasky will play a prominent role in Halo 4, having become a commander aboard the Infinity. On April 17th, 2012 episode of the TBS late night comedy show Conan, hosts Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter announced that they will be voicing Navy deckhands, with whom the player will be able to interact while they lift crates in the Infinity hangar bay. They can be encountered towards the end of the game.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Glasslands
 * The Commissioning
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
 * Halo: The Thursday War
 * Halo 4