Codename: COALMINER

COALMINER is the alias of an Office of Naval Intelligence operative involved in highly classified missions, namely Operation: HYPODERMIC. Given their rather frequent correspondence, COALMINER's handler may be Codename: SURGEON.

Human-Covenant War
COALMINER's earliest known activity was in 2532. In a message to Codename: SURGEON concerning the SPARTAN-III Program, COALMINER noted the early stages of preparing Alpha Company were progressing satisfactorily and expressed confidence in Kurt-051's training regimen.

In 2552, COALMINER detected an intrusion into the ONI databases at Reach. While COALMINER failed to identify the intruder, the intrusion threatened to compromise HYPODERMIC. COALMINER informed SURGEON of the breach and deleted the from Gamma Station's database to minimize the damage.

This caused difficulties during the latter stages of the Fall of Reach as it prevented the AI Doppler from erasing the Circumference's NAV database in accordance with the Cole Protocol. A SPARTAN-II team was deployed to destroy the ship and suffered casualties in the process. In an indirect manner, this lapse in security inadvertently saved humanity: in the wake of the mission to Gamma Station, John-117 traveled to Halo Installation 04 aboard the, which set about the final stages of the Human-Covenant War.

Post-war
At a later date, perhaps in 2557, COALMINER received a message from SURGEON discussing how the Human-Covenant War had been a catalyst for humanity's betterment. SURGEON likened humanity's experience in the war to a sword being tempered by fire. The report indicated that, if humanity did not take advantage of the post-war situation, all might have been for naught.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Fall of Reach - Invasion