UNSC Pillar of Autumn

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The UNSC Pillar of Autumn was a heavily modified United Nations Space Command cruiser. It was informally referred to as the Autumn by UNSC personnel.

History
Mothballed and due to be scrapped like the remainder of the Halcyon-class, the Human-Covenant War saw the reactivation of the Pillar of Autumn. The refit she subsequently received rectified a number of deficiencies in the original design and made her a competitive re-addition to the sorely pressed UNSC Navy. At the time of her destruction in 2552 she was 43 years old. The Pillar of Autumn saw action at the Battle of Reach and was one of the two ships to escape the disaster. Although the Cole Protocol demanded a random Slipstream jump, the AI Cortana, unbeknownst to the crew, purposely guided the ship to the planet Threshold based on map coordinates extracted from a Forerunner artifact. The result was the discovery of Installation 04, or "Halo". A brief and uneven battle against a Covenant battle group of a dozen superior battlecruisers in near-Threshold space resulted in critical damage being inflicted upon the Pillar of Autumn. Enemy boarding parties disabled the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon's fire control with a demolition charge, but not before she made a good account of herself by destroying four enemy warships and damaging several others. The Pillar of Autumn's survival against superior forces was due in part to a Prophet's directive to disable, rather than destroy, her out of fear that her destruction might harm "Halo", which had religious significance to the Covenant. The ship was then crash landed onto "Halo" by her captain, coming to rest upright and balanced over a cliff on a barren peninsula.

Prior to the crash much of her crew had taken to the escape pods, including the Master Chief whose suit was carrying Cortana in a bid to prevent the AI's capture. Others evacuated by Pelican dropship or even in drop pods, as was the case for a complement of ODSTs. Despite the confusion most of the crew survived to reach "Halo" and engage Covenant ground forces. Pelicans were employed to retrieve munitions from the crashed ship to sustain this effort.

Despite the abuse sustained during the space battle and the following crash the Pillar of Autumn remained intact, and was subsequently occupied by investigating Covenant forces and later by Flood. The threat posed by the latter was deemed sufficiently great for the Master Chief and Cortana to detonate the ship's still-functioning fusion power cores in a bid to destroy "Halo", thus preventing the Flood from escaping.

Having manually triggered a destabilization of the power cores, the Master Chief and Cortana commandeered a Longsword from one of the Pillar of Autumn's docking bays and achieved a safe minimum distance before the ship exploded, causing the ring-world to fragment.

Power Plant
The Pillar of Autumn was refitted with an improved nuclear fusion engine that featured two smaller reactors around a larger one, capable of boosting power out by 310%. An upgraded cooling system was also retrofitted, featuring "a laser-induced optical slurry of ions chilled to near-absolute zero" that removed the reliance on depleteable chemical temperature-control agents. In essence, the new system provided increased waste heat removal as power output increased. This self-regulating and self-cooling system was critical in combat since it virtually eliminated a commander's concerns about overheating and slagging a ship's engines.

Armament
The primary weapon was a single Magnetic Accelerator Cannon capable of firing three "shredder shots" on a single charge. Available ordnance included 4 Shiva Missiles and 128 Archer missile pods containing 26 missiles each, enough for over three massed salvos of 1000 missiles. Finally, point defense was provided by forty 50mm auto cannons.

Engine Room
The Pillar of Autumn's engine room, or just "Engineering", was a large, three-deck high chamber allowing access to the fusion engine core. Side passages allowed for movement from the bottom deck all the way up to the catwalks on the third. The manifolds into the cores were suspended above the second deck. Controls on the third retracted these manifolds, exposing a vent that led directly into the core. It was using this method to expose the core via the vents that the Master Chief ultimately destroyed the ship and "Halo".

Pillar of Autumn Command Crew

 * Captain Jacob Keyes -- Ship Captain
 * Cortana -- Spartan AI
 * Lieutenant Dominique -- Communications Officer
 * Lieutenant Aki Hikowa -- Weapons Officer
 * Lieutenant Hall -- Operations Officer
 * Ensign William Michael Lovell -- Navigation Officer
 * Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy -- Chief Engineer
 * Crewman Abiad
 * Crewman Wang
 * Crewman Singh

Other Naval Personnel

 * Tech Chief Thom Shepard -- Cryogenics Technician
 * Tech Officer First Class Mary Murphy -- Air Traffic Technician
 * Tech Officer Sam Marcus -- Cryogenics Technician
 * Petty Officer Third Class Pauley -- Radio Technician
 * Petty Officer Third Class Cho -- Radio Technician
 * Flight Officer Captain Carol "Foehammer" Rawley -- Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant "Cookie" Peterson -- Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant Rick Hale -- Pelican Pilot
 * Flight Officer Mitchell -- Pelican Pilot
 * Warrant Officer Shiela Polaski -- Pelican Pilot
 * Lieutenant Frye -- Pelican Co-Pilot
 * Crew Chief Cullen -- Pelican Communications Officer
 * Lieutenant Haverson

Individuals

 * Private Bisenti
 * Company Sergeant Tink Carter
 * Sergeant Corly
 * Second Lieutenant Dalu
 * Private Chipps Dubbo
 * Private First Class M. Fitzgerald
 * Private First Class Hosky
 * Private First Class Wallace A. Jenkins
 * Sergeant Johnson
 * Lance Corporal "Snaky" Jones
 * Private Kappus
 * Master Sergeant Lister
 * Corporal Locklear
 * Corporal Lovik
 * First Lieutenant Melissa McKay
 * Private Manuel Mendoza
 * Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto
 * Private O'Brien
 * Second Lieutenant Oros
 * Sergeant Parker
 * Private Marie Postly
 * Private Riley
 * Private Satha
 * Major Antonio Silva
 * Sergeant Stacker
 * Gunnery Sergeant Waller
 * Corporal Wilkins
 * Al-Thani
 * Dawkins
 * Medic "Doc" Valdez
 * Mary Murphy
 * Suzuki

Units

 * 830 Marines-1 ODST Battalion, 1 Marine Battalion
 * Combat Team Alpha
 * Combat Team November
 * Combat Team Sierra
 * Combat Team Victor
 * Fire Team Charlie
 * Fire Team Zulu
 * Fourteenth Platoon
 * Twenty-Second Tactical

Others

 * Spartan-058
 * Spartan-117
 * Wellsley (A.I.)

Trivia

 * The Pillar of Autumn is approximately 1.17 km long. This, however, contradicts the final level of Halo: Combat Evolved where the player must drive along a 3 km long service corridor that supposedly runs the length of the ship. This was probably for generating the tension and atmosphere necessary for the level.
 * The Marathon logo is prominently displayed on the Pillar of Autumn's starboard and port sides. The ship's official emblem has the Marathon logo as well.
 * The bulletin board just outside the bridge of the ship contains a number of amusing clips, some throwbacks to Marathon. These can be examined on the first level of Halo: Combat Evolved.
 * The length is said to be 1.17 km long, which is the ID number of Master Chief, 117.