Forerunner fleet

The Forerunner Navy was a defensive branch of the Forerunner ecumene tasked with space combat and naval operations. Led by Forerunner Fleet Command, they held the responsibility of protecting Forerunner planets from space from external threats, namely the Flood during the Forerunner-Flood war.

History


It is unknown exactly how many ships that the Forerunners had in their fleet, but given that a single AI would take personal command of a core fleet alone of one thousand ships, combined with the three million worlds that the Forerunners controlled: it is fair to assume that the Forerunner fleet consisted of many millions of ships, though this number was severely whittled down over three centuries of war. During the course of the war, the Forerunner fleet attempted to prevent the Flood from landing on the surface of various planets, and when the Flood invariably did, the Forerunner Navy's main concern was to evacuate as many civilians as possible.

As the Forerunners realized that they had no chance of militarily winning the war, and as the Flood closed in on the Maginot Sphere, they created a master AI, Mendicant Bias, to coordinate all of their strategic movements and grapple with the Gravemind itself. Mendicant Bias was given a personal fleet of a thousand core capital ships. However, direct contact with the Gravemind caused Mendicant Bias to turn rampant, and it quickly turned on its creators.

Mendicant Bias led its fleet through the Maginot Sphere, where it encountered three entire fleets of Forerunner warships led by Offensive Bias. The following encounter was quite possibly the largest battle ever seen by the galaxy ensued between the two opposing sides. At this point, the IsoDidact, overall commander of the remaining Forerunner Navy, fired the Halo Array. Although it killed all the surviving Forerunners, it also neutralized Mendicant Bias's giant Flood-controlled fleet, which had until this point, vastly outnumbered Offensive Bias. With the odds much more even, Offensive Bias managed to defeat the rampant AI's remaining core ships and delivered Mendicant Bias to the Ark for study.

What happened to the few surviving Forerunner ships after this is unknown, but without any Forerunners to guide them, some of them may have crashed onto various objects and were later found by the races of the Covenant, some utilizing the ships' advanced technology. For example, the Forerunner Dreadnought was used to power the Covenant capital of High Charity.

Appearances and capabilities
Based on what was seen of them, Forerunner vessels were massive and extremely well protected and powered.

A single Keyship could power a structure the size of an entire moon by using less than a tenth of its total power output. In a UNSC naval assault against the Covenant in the Battle of Voi, three UNSC frigates fired their Magnetic Accelerator Cannons at the Forerunner Dreadnought but it remained intact. This makes it even more powerful than a Covenant supercruiser, which could only barely take the impact of three special light MAC rounds and five hundred Archer missiles. However, it has never been seen to use its actual weapons. One class of dreadnoughts can combine their fire into a large singular beam capable of slicing a ship in two, before causing a massive explosion.

Known ship types

 * The Forerunner dreadnought was a combat vessel commonly used during the Forerunner-Flood War.
 * Keyships such as the Forerunner Dreadnought were used to open gateways to the Ark and to transport lifeforms away from the Array's effect, as well as back to their homeworlds. They also possessed powerful shielding and weaponry.
 * Forerunner cruiser
 * Fortress-class vessel
 * Planet-breaker
 * Forerunner Builder ship
 * Forerunner picket cruiser
 * Dignity-class escort
 * Preservation-class escort
 * Falco-class space pod
 * Fast frigate

Known commanders

 * Mendicant Bias
 * Offensive Bias
 * Bitterness-of-the-Vanquished
 * Examiner
 * Falchion
 * IsoDidact
 * Tactician

Known units

 * Primary Pioneer Group
 * Advance Survey Team Alpha
 * Suppression Fleet
 * Security Fleet
 * Emergency Circumstance Fleet - The last known actions of the Suppression, Security, and Emergency Circumstance Fleets were in an engagement against the Flood-controlled fleets in a last stand during the Battle of the Maginot Sphere.

Production notes
The Forerunner Navy was first mentioned in the terminals of Halo 3. However, The Forerunner Saga makes no mention of the Navy and instead establishes a markedly different structure of Forerunner military organizations based on rates, with most defense falling under the Warrior-Servants and Builder Security and neither seemingly having no distinct branches. It is still possible that the Navy was an actual organization, perhaps operating within the combined forces reconstituted from both Builders Security and Warrior-Servants in the later days of the Forerunner-Flood war, mentioned in Halo: Silentium. Alternatively, in light of the new information, it is possible that the mention of the "Navy" in the terminals could be understood as a quirk in the "translation", meant to refer to either one of the established organizations tasked with warfare or their fleets in general.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3
 * Halo Wars
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Silentium