Anodyne Spirit

"My Dreadnought, the vessel that has so long been the focus of our worship, now rests on its true pedestal. Even now, its engines spark greater ones below, relics long without power, yet ready to fulfill their divine purpose. Stand fast! Keep our enemies at bay! Soon, my brothers, we will all have our reward!"

- Prophet of Truth to his troops during the Battle of Earth.

The Forerunner Dreadnought, colloquially known as the Forerunner ship, was a Forerunner Keyship.

The Keyships were a large part of the Forerunner strategy against the Flood, as they were the only vessels capable of activating slipspace portals to reach the Ark. One of these Keyships, later known as the Dreadnought to the Covenant, would later be found and used by the San 'Shyuum, and would later become an integral part of the Covenant religion, as well as power for the Covenant holy city, High Charity. Featuring armament and shielding unparalleled by human or Covenant technology, the ship was used as the flagship of the Prophet of Truth in the final battles of the Human-Covenant War.

History
The history of the Forerunner Dreadnought is quite extensive, going back to about 100,000 years.

Forerunner-Flood War
During the Forerunner-Flood War, Keyships were used by the Librarian to index and catalog life in the galaxy and transport it to the Ark. The Librarian, however, destroyed her Keyships to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Flood, who with them, would be able to instantaneously travel to the Ark, rendering the Halo Array useless. Near the end of the war, the Keyships were part of a strategy to hold off the Flood for nearly 79 years, although this advantage would be foiled by the massive computing power of the Flood.

After the activation of the Array, several Keyships automatically were sent out into the galaxy, containing numerous specimens of various alien races, to ensure that life would go on. One of these vessels re-seeded life to the San 'Shyuum homeworld Janjur Qom. Instead of leaving the planet afterward, as was the case with other re-seeded species, the vessel remained there for unknown reasons.

Rediscovery
Early in the history of the San 'Shyuum, they found and worshiped a Forerunner Dreadnought that they uncovered on their homeworld. These early worshipers were split, over the usage of the ship, as the Stoics refused to enter the vessel, while the radical Reformists wished to explore it. The Reformists then barricaded themselves within the Keyship, and left Janur Qom, taking a gigantic piece of the planet with them. This piece was later refitted into the rocky dome of High Charity along with the Dreadnought atop it.

Sangheili-San 'Shyuum War
After leaving their home world the San 'Shyuum encountered the Sangheili, who also had familiarity with Forerunner technology. The San 'Shyuum believed that incorporating Forerunner technology was allowed by their religion. To the Sangheili, such a thing would have been unthinkable.

During the War, the Sangheili had an early advantage, with each warrior comparable in skill to ten San 'Shyuum in battle. However, the San 'Shyuum's technological superiority, and possession of the Forerunner Dreadnought, meant that they had the advantage in space, using the Keyship to great effect in devastating hit-and-run strikes against the Sangheilian Fleets. Eventually, the Sangheili were forced to amend their position of the treatment of Forerunner technologies and began incorporating elements into their own designs.

Eventually, in order to ensure the survival of both races, the two races merged to form the early Covenant with the San 'Shyuum as the head religious leaders and the Sangheili as their protectors, and head of the military.

Centerpiece of High Charity
The two races then penned the Writ of Union, which formally began the Covenant, and decommissioned the Forerunner warship, removing all known weapons, and placing it within the partially completed High Charity. It was then used to power the city, with its engines at partial power. The Dreadnought then became the purview of the ascetic priests, who studied the vessel's systems and tended to the Oracle, in fact a fragment of the rampant Forerunner AI 032 Mendicant Bias.

After the Taming of the Lekgolo, the Prophets used the newly incorporated Lekgolo to explore Forerunner relics, and after ages of experimenting on lesser relics, finally worked up the courage to explore the Dreadnought's pathways. At first, these explorations were slow and deliberate, as the priests feared damaging the Dreadnought or offending the Oracle. But with no response from the Oracle, the priests began to continue the explorations until the practice became common place.

Human-Covenant War


Before the start of the Human-Covenant War the Forerunner Dreadnought, the founding of the Prophet’s religion, would soon become the place where their religion was proven false. During the 23rd Age of Doubt, the Minister of Fortitude, and the Vice Minister of Tranquility went to the Dreadnought for confirmation of two symbols found on the missionary vessel Minor Transgression. These two symbols were “Reclamation” and “Oracle”, which were found on what was known to Humanity as Harvest. After the Philologist entered the data into the "Oracle" inside of the Keyship, it began a series of cryptic messages, listed below:


 * FOR EONS I HAVE WATCHED
 * LISTENED TO YOU MISINTERPRET
 * THIS IS NOT RECLAMATION
 * THIS IS RECLAIMER
 * AND THOSE IT REPRESENTS ARE MY MAKERS
 * I WILL REJECT MY BIAS AND MAKE AMENDS
 * MY MAKERS ARE MY MASTERS
 * I WILL BRING THEM SAFELY TO THE ARK



During this series of messages, the Oracle began a launch sequence, which would rip the Keyship from High Charity and destroy the Covenant capital with it. Fortunately for the people of High Charity, the Dreadnought was short-circuited by Lekgolo exploring the pathways. The Oracle was soon disconnected, but this caused a spiritual crisis for Fortitude, Tranquility and the Philologist. Through the Oracle’s messages, the Forerunners (or their descendants), were still alive, which would shake the foundations of the Covenant itself to the core: if the masses learned that they might be left behind, then they would revolt against the Prophets. In an attempt to keep the religion itself intact, they covered up the encounter, and would try to eradicate these Reclaimers.

For most of the Human-Covenant War, the Dreadnought remained a purely religious artifact, not a weapon, until the First Battle of High Charity.

The Battle of High Charity
When the Flood attacked High Charity, the Master Chief was on his way to stop the Prophet of Truth, from escaping and at the end of the Battle of Installation 05. He was able to board the ship as Truth uncoupled it from the city's power grid by narrowly making it through a conduit and into the opening it connected to. The Forerunner Dreadnought lifted off, and jumped into Slipspace in the midst of a large battle between Covenant Loyalists, Covenant Separatists and the Flood.

Battle of Earth
Five days after leaving High Charity (infected by the Flood), the Dreadnought arrived in Sol System. While the Dreadnought was passing Jupiter, John-117, onboard the ship, was contacted by a station on Io, but after going into radio silence, he killed four Grunts, a pair of Jackals and then another group of four Grunts. It is unknown what happened immediately afterward, but soon, the Spartan was found unconscious by a group of Brutes. The Brutes interrogated him, asking him where the Key of Osanalan was, but the Spartan managed to escape by sticking his captor with a plasma grenade.

After making his way to the Prophet of Truth’s position, he reported to the UNSC that one Prophet Hierarch was on board and that he would transmit more information later. Then, Spartan-117 took aim at Truth with a Carbine and fired. Just before the Master Chief could get a good shot at Truth, a Jackal with a Carbine shot and hit the Chief.

Now aware of the immediate threat within his ship, Truth ordered a jump deeper in the system, straight to Earth, where the battle was still raging between the battered remains of the UNSC fleet and Truth's forces. As the Dreadnought transitioned from Slipspace, now in range of Earth's orbital defense platforms, Admiral Hood was about to give the order to attack the ship. He only stopped because he found out that the Master Chief was aboard. The Keyship, leading the Covenant loyalist fleet, eventually broke through Earth's already-weakened defenses, and headed for Earth.

Nine days after the ship's arrival in the system, the Dreadnought entered Earth's atmosphere. John-117 jumped from the ship as it continued descending, using a hatch as a heat shield, and falling two kilometers into the African jungle. The Dreadnought continued its descent and landed on the Portal to the Ark, which the Covenant fleet was excavating.

The remaining UNSC forces on Africa, planned to launch a surprise strike on the Keyship to eliminate Truth and stop him from activating the structure they thought to be the Ark. The Master Chief led a Marine assault on a Covenant Loyalist anti-air battery sector in the town of Voi and successfully disabled the battery, giving the UNSC a clear shot at the Keyship. Lord Hood then attacked the ship with multiple squadrons of Longsword fighters and three UNSC frigates. The Dreadnought's advanced Forerunner shielding allowed it to survive multiple MAC rounds and hundreds of Longsword-launched missiles and emerge completely unharmed, and the UNSC attack was halted when the Portal was activated by the Keyship.

After activating the portal, the Keyship entered it and landed on The Ark. It did not take part in the battle. The ship was possibly damaged beyond use from the combined effect of Slipspace transition and the attack, and was most likely destroyed when the Halo destroyed itself and the Ark; however, the fate of the Keyship is not known for sure.

Trivia

 * In the Halo Uprising comic series, almost every background on the Dreadnought was modeled after a location in Halo 2. For example, the Dreadnought's hangar bay looks identical to the Threshold Gas Mine hangar bay in Halo 2, including a docked Seraph. In addition, areas identical to the Valleys of Tears as well as the Council Chamber in High Charity can be seen. This may be a case of artistic interpretation by the artist to capture the look of Forerunner and Covenant architectures.
 * Originally, a level referred to as forerunnership was supposed to take place on the vessel right after defeating Tartarus in the level The Great Journey in Halo 2. The level was cut due to time constraints.