New Phoenix Incident

"And yet, still you fail."

- The Ur-Didact to John-117 on his failure in attempting to prevent him from activating the Composer

The New Phoenix Incident, or The Fall of New Phoenix, was an engagement fought between the UNSC and the Ur-Didact and his Promethean forces in close proximity to Earth on July 25, 2557.

The battle
Having retrieved the Composer from Ivanoff Station, the Didact set out to attack Earth in his ship, Mantle's Approach. The Didact was unaware, however, that John-117 and Cortana, in a Broadsword fighter, had managed to breach the ship's shields and make the slipspace journey along with it. As the ship emerged near Earth, the UNSC Home Fleet was mustered in Earth's defense; including the, now under the command of Thomas Lasky. Despite this preparation, the fleet's efforts were rendered useless by the advanced technology of the Didact's ship. Earth's orbital defense grid went into Red Alert, but even the Orbital Defense Platforms proved ineffective. Hunting for the Composer aboard Mantle's Approach, John-117 and Cortana proceeded to destroy the turrets defending the ship's main weapon, allowing the Infinity to fire upon the Didact's ship to open a hole for the Master Chief's Broadsword. However, the interior defenses made the passage too narrow for the fighter to pass through and caused it to crash, forcing the Chief and Cortana to carry their HAVOK payload to the Composer on foot.

As John-117 and Cortana reached the Composer, the Didact activated the device, killing seven million people in New Phoenix, a major population center in North America. After fighting past significant opposition from the Prometheans, the Master Chief was able to approach the center structure, only to be ambushed by the Didact. During the struggle, Cortana was able to manipulate the hard light bridge on which the Didact stood, trapping him. This bought the Master Chief enough time to activate a pulse grenade and attack the Didact with it. The resulting explosion pushed the Didact into the slipspace rupture below. As Master Chief activated the HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon, Cortana was able to translocate the Spartan a safe distance away from the blast. The majority of Cortana's processes remained aboard Mantle's Approach, and were presumably destroyed in the nuclear blast. She maintained herself long enough to bid farewell to the Spartan inside a box of hard light she had generated somewhere outside the immediate blast radius. Master Chief was found by a Pelican floating among the debris and was returned to the Infinity.

Aftermath
Due to the uncertainty over the finality of the Didact's defeat, the UNSC Security Council decided to hide the details of the attack from the public, concealing it as an attack by the Covenant remnants stopped by the return of humanity's greatest hero, the Master Chief. Additionally, the Office of Naval Intelligence quarantined New Phoenix for a year. Six months later, however, ONI public relations officer John Sullivan released a statement to the press confirming the Covenant were not responsible for the attack.

The UNSC leadership's doubts over the Didact's death were not unfounded; the Promethean survived his fall into the Composer's slipspace rupture and proceeded to continue his quest against humankind. Immediately after the attack, his Promethean forces slaughtered a UNSC science team, as well as Spartan Team Black, in the vicinity of the Composer's Abyss on Installation 03, prompting the UNSC to deploy Blue Team to investigate. Meanwhile, the Didact had established a new base of operations in a Forerunner city on what he referred to as "[his] world".

During the Second Battle of Requiem, the UNSC Infinity recovered a Forerunner Durance called the Didact's Gift from the Covenant. The device, said to contain the "soul" of a Promethean Knight, revealed images of New Phoenix during the attack, indicating that the consciousnesses of the composed New Phoenix residents had been transferred back to Requiem and converted into new Prometheans. Adding to the mystery, the images also revealed that another Forerunner artifact had been present in New Phoenix during the attack.

On March 24, 2558, eight months after the battle, the city's quarantine was lifted. A "Rebirth" ceremony was held in the city, presided over by UEG President Ruth Charet.

List of appearances

 * Halo 4
 * Spartan Ops
 * Halo: Escalation