UNSC High Command

UNSC High Command (HIGHCOM or HighCom) is the highest operational command of the United Nations Space Command and is ultimately in charge of all personnel, equipment, and facilities used by the UNSC Armed Forces. It is sometimes colloquially referred to as "the Admiralty", which is a misnomer as its staff is composed of personnel from all branches, not just the Navy. High Command consists of less than twenty members that work very closely to plan missions, set objectives, to ensure that there are no disputes over resources or the command hierarchy among the lower echelons.

History
In 2491, Doctor Elias Carver published his "Carver Findings" and presented them before High Command, where he theorized that a civil war would rip apart the Unified Earth Government unless the political situation in the colonies was stabilized, preferably by force. While Carver's theories were dismissed by many, they gained purchase within High Command and the Office of Naval Intelligence. Carver's predication proved true, as the Insurrection began several years later across human space, as High Command began to formulate strategies to deal with the insurrectionists for decades to come.

When the Covenant attacked and glassed the Outer Colony of Harvest in 2525, High Command and ONI were not fully prepared for conflict against an advanced alien empire. High Command put the entire UNSC on full alert in preparation to the Covenant as the Human-Covenant War began, and ordered for the acceleration of the SPARTAN-II program to use the Spartan-IIs to combat the Covenant. Although initially unpopular among High Command, the effectiveness of the Spartan-IIs against the Covenant saw that the Admiralty's reticence about the program vanish, with High Command making the Spartan-IIs public in 2549 to boost public morale. On August 30, 2552, during the Fall of Reach, the Covenant destroyed the Reach High Command facility, one of the primary headquarters of High Command. Many high-ranking officers were killed in the facility's destruction, leaving Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb—Deputy Chief of Naval Operations—in command of all forces on Reach for the rest of the battle. With the destruction of Reach High Command, the surviving members of UNSC High Command relocated to HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, Australia on Earth.

During the Battle of Earth beginning in October 2552, despite the fact that Sydney was heavily damaged by the Covenant's assault, High Command's officers survived within HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6, with some members boasting that even the Covenant was loathe to attack the facility. With the end of the Covenant War, High Command continued to direct the UNSC as it begun rebuilding what was lost in the war.

Organization
"You'll note I didn't mention HIGHCOM, and that's because all ONI sections lie to HIGHCOM and tell it that it's the most powerful body on Earth, which generally works well at keeping the old buffers convinced that they make the decisions."

- Black-Box, partly joking, speaking of High Command's relations to the Office of Naval Intelligence

UNSC High Command consists of a small group of high-ranking officers within the United Nations Space Command that plan missions, set objectives, and ensure that there is no internal disputes or conflicts over resources and command hierarchy among the subordinate commands. Though the UNSC is rather large and often bureaucratically unwieldy, the UNSC was designed for cross-discipline cooperation and joint-operations, with a great deal of overlap between operational commands and divisions. However, due to the nature of the UNSC High Command, this organization structure results in very few jurisdictional and protocol issues. High Command has authority over planning, personnel, resources, and equipment within the UNSC.

UNSC High Command is split into two commands; the Unified Ground Command, coordinating the ground forces of the UNSC Armed Forces, and the UNSC Naval Command, in charge of the UNSC Navy and token expeditionary aspects of the UNSC Marine Corps. High Command exercises local authority through regional Central Commands, which have responsibility over certain areas of Unified Earth Government space. High Command is responsible for establishing numerous mandates and directives for the Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence, with many of the agency's orders coming directly from High Command. However, most sections of ONI often mislead or lie to High Command, while Naval Command is often blindsided by the organization. High Command also utilizes Fireteam Osiris, a fireteam within the Spartan branch formed to execute challenging operations deemed persistently intractable by members of High Command.

High Command is a small group of the UNSC's highest-ranking officers, including fleet admirals, admirals, and generals; members of High Command include the Chief and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. There is fewer than twenty members of UNSC High Command, all of which work closely together. Top-level officers from every branch of the Armed Forces form the UNSC Security Council of High Command, an influential body that is in overall control of the UNSC. With headquarters on the planets Reach and Earth, HIGHCOM has directed the strategy for the actions of the UNSC since its very beginning, from combating rebel forces such as the insurrectionists to the genocidal war waged by the Covenant.

Facilities

 * HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 – Sydney, Australia, Earth
 * Reach High Command – Highland Mountains, Viery Territory, Reach

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: The Flood
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Uprising
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Human Weakness
 * The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: Primordium
 * Halo: The Thursday War
 * Halo: Initiation
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo: Mortal Dictata
 * Halo: New Blood
 * Halo: Hunters in the Dark