Luna

Luna, often referred to as the Moon, is the only natural satellite of Earth. Luna is home to a large human population and the renowned Luna OCS Academy. Luna houses a number of skyhook defense complexes suspended in its low orbit.

Luna is also the name generally used to refer to the populated colonies across the moon.

Topography
Luna has a barren surface and is atmospherically devoid. It's gravity is low, which has prevented large scale terraforming. Day and night run in a month long pattern of two weeks of darkness and two weeks of light.

Luna has a "near side"/"front face" and a "far side". The far side of Luna faces out into space while the near side faces Earth. The far side contains more and deeper impact craters than the near side since the near side is protected by Earth itself. Daedalus Crater was in the middle of the far side while Mare Cognitum is on the near side and visible from Earth without a telescope.

Due to being atmospherically devoid, the habitats on Luna are sealed from vacuum and interconnected by tubes. Most contain soaring spires dotted with windows (all designed to take advantage of the low gravity) and vast dome habitats. Colonies on the moon are sometimes referred to as canopy settlements.

Locations

 * Naniwa
 * Crisium City
 * Daedalus Crater
 * Daedalus complex
 * Delambre
 * Lake Autolycus
 * Mare Cognitum
 * Mare Nubium
 * State of Mare Nubium
 * County of Newton
 * Shadow Perimeter 3
 * Asimov Center
 * Luna OCS Academy
 * Mare Insularum
 * Armstrong Alley
 * Mare Imbrium
 * Ankara
 * Anakara Resiliency Chamber
 * "Bosque de Negro"
 * Mare Frigoris‎
 * Procellarum basin‎
 * Tycho Observation Facility
 * UNSC Transit Dock L22

Known residents

 * Keyes family
 * Jacob Keyes
 * Miranda Keyes
 * Michael Crespo
 * The Rookie
 * Sarah Palmer

Rise of humanity
Human beings took their first steps on Luna in 1969. By 1996, US Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Dean Mitchell was the 6th human to have walked on the moon.

Humans began settling on Luna around 2080. During the Interplanetary War, Vladimir Koslov and his family were killed in a bombing at Lake Autolycus on Luna.

By 2492, a governing body of Luna was known as Luna Confederated States, the State of Mare Nubium being one of the said states. The Academy at Mare Nubium, known more generally as the Luna OCS Academy, was located here.

Human-Covenant war
Despite its proximity to Earth, Luna was home to some degree of Insurrectionist activity; shortly after 2530, the parents of Michael Crespo died attempting to detonate a bomb attached to a government building on Luna.

Around the time of the Fall of Reach, flights from the Manassas Spaceport on Reach went to Luna.

During the Battle of Earth in late 2552, Luna's skyhook defense complexes came under attack by the Covenant and were defended by ONI Security personnel. Other Covenant forces attacked Luna's cities to ensure that the UNSC would not be able to launch a sneak attack from their Lunar military bases. Both Luna and Mars got hit particularly hard compared to other colonies in the Sol system, although they both fared better than Earth. Around November 17, an overwhelming and final Covenant naval forces under the command of the Prophet of Truth break through the Lunar perimeter and later overrun too much of the weakened Home Fleet over Earth as the Truth-controlled Forerunner Dreadnought headed for the planet, letting the Covenant fleet to lead a subsequent bombardment on the human homeworld.

Many habitats on the moon survived the Covenant assault relatively intact. Following the Battle for Tribute with the loss of over half of the population on Tribute, Earth was unable to afford to spare any immediate assistance with Sol’s colonies left in ruins.



Post-war
Following the Human-Covenant War, Luna was home to the Office of Naval Intelligence vessel, which was deployed to Installation 00 in December of 2553 to investigate the disappearance of automated probes sent eight months prior and to determine the source of an unknown signal.

Created conflict
Luna lost power during The Reclamation. Two days later, one of the facilities on the moon was overrun by Armigers who took hostages. Shortly after, Alpha-Nine arrived on a mission in order to retrieve Vergil.

Government and society
Due to the physical limitations of the moon, gravity and atmospherics have to be provided by large scale system and massive housing infrastructure. Luna features some of the most densely populated places in the galaxy with Mare Cognitum being the largest.

The Office of Naval Intelligence maintained a base on Luna in the Daedalus Crater.

Trivia

 * Luna is the Latin word for Moon, and many Latin-based languages share the word.
 * In many Earth-based maps in the Halo games, the Moon often appears to be larger than in real life.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3
 * Halo: The Cole Protocol
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole
 * Remember Reach
 * Spaceport
 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
 * Terminals
 * The Commissioning
 * Halo 4
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo 2: Anniversary
 * Halo: New Blood
 * Halo: Hunters in the Dark
 * Halo Mythos
 * Halo: Envoy
 * Halo: Retribution
 * Halo: Legacy of Onyx
 * Halo: Bad Blood
 * Halo: Outpost Discovery