UNSC Forward Unto Dawn

''Forward Unto Dawn redirects here. For the web series, see Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn; for the poem, see Forward Unto Dawn (poem).''

UNSC Forward Unto Dawn (FFG-201) was a in the UNSC Navy. Affectionately known by her crew as "The Dawn", the ship's name is taken from a poem about humanity's interstellar expansion. With a maximum complement of 782, the Dawn participated in the final battles of the Human-Covenant War.

Battle of Voi
In November 2552, Forward Unto Dawn was part of the UNSC's Seventh Fleet. The Dawn was recalled to reinforce the UNSC Home Fleet during the Battle of Earth. The UNSC suffered heavy casualties during the Covenant's assault. By the time Spartan John-117 arrived from Installation 05 aboard the Prophet of Truth's Forerunner Dreadnought, Forward Unto Dawn was one of the few ships remaining under Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood's command. Due to the lack of larger, more powerful vessels, Hood used the Dawn as his flagship during the Battle of Voi. He agreed to commit Forward Unto Dawn and two other frigates, (including Aegis Fate), against the grounded Dreadnought, which had begun interfacing with the Forerunner structure the Covenant had unearthed between the cities of Mombasa and Voi. After the Spartan destroyed the Covenant's local anti-air defenses, the frigates and several GA-TL1 Longswords assaulted the Dreadnought.

Despite firing nearly a dozen MAC slugs at Truth's ship, the Dreadnought remained unharmed. Immediately afterward, a slipspace portal was activated and Truth's fleet passed through it. Unbeknownst to the UNSC, who assumed that the excavated complex was itself the Ark, the real Ark, Installation 00, lay beyond the portal.

The Flood arrived in Voi shortly after the opening of the slipspace portal; the parasite was pursued by a Covenant separatist Fleet of Retribution, led by the assault carrier Shadow of Intent. The Flood threat forced the UNSC into an alliance with the Sangheili-led separatists, commanded by Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum. Both the humans and the Sangheili hoped to find a solution to the Flood beyond the portal. At least two UNSC vessels, Forward Unto Dawn and Aegis Fate, were deployed alongside the Fleet of Retribution; elements of the 11th Marine Force Reconnaissance/ODST were tasked with gathering intelligence on whatever lay beyond the portal. Hood gave Commander Miranda Keyes command of Forward Unto Dawn while he remained behind to coordinate Earth's remaining defenses; the ship was docked inside Shadow of Intent's massive hangar bay and the task force set off through the portal.

Operation: BLIND FAITH
"I'm giving the Brutes all I've got, but this is a heavy-weight fight! The Dawn's only got the tonnage to last a few rounds."

- Commander Miranda Keyes during the battle over the Ark.

Once at the Ark, the opposing Covenant fleets engaged one another. The UNSC frigates were ill-equipped to fight against such large opponents, but were able to engage the enemy cruisers for a short time. Forward Unto Dawn deployed troops to the surface, with John-117's team disabling an Mantis AA gun. Once a landing zone was cleared, Forward Unto Dawn set down near the Cartographer and directly offloaded several M808 Main Battle Tanks and M12 Force Application Vehicles.

As the human-Sangheili alliance pushed toward the installation's control center, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was captured so that Truth could force him to activate the Halo Array. Around this time, the Flood arrived at the Ark via the now-infested High Charity and began attacking both sides. Commander Keyes attempted a daring rescue, though she was killed personally by the Prophet of Truth. Shortly thereafter, John-117, Arbiter Thel 'Vadam, and monitor 343 Guilty Spark discovered that the Ark was manufacturing a replacement for Installation 04; it was then determined that igniting the ring could destroy both the Flood and the Covenant with a single, decisive blow. With the rest of Forward Unto Dawn's crew and complement dead or aboard the remaining separatist vessels, Johnson brought the ship a few kilometers from the incomplete ring's Control Room and closed the distance in a Warthog.

Escape from Installation 00
"Well, some of us made it."

- Cortana, after escaping Installation 04B. Ultimately, Johnson was betrayed and killed by Guilty Spark, who was in turn destroyed by the Spartan. With the ring was activated, John and the Arbiter raced to the now-deserted vessel. After crashing Johnson's Warthog into the ship's oversized cargo bay, 'Vadam headed for the bridge while the Spartan uploaded Cortana into the ship's mainframe to activate the engines. The ship entered the slipspace portal, which collapsed as the ring's energy pulse hit. Forward Unto Dawn was cut in half as a result.

The forward section, containing the Arbiter, returned to Earth and crashed into the Indian Ocean. They were rescued from the wreckage by a UNSC recovery team. The debris from the ship that landed on Earth was auctioned off sometime after the end of the Human-Covenant War.

Adrift in space
The aft section emerged in unknown space, John and Cortana having survived the Halo's pulse. The Spartan and AI were left in a drifting hulk without artificial gravity or working propulsion. The AI dropped a distress beacon John entered a cryo chamber to wait for recovery. During the years that followed, Cortana remained active and alert while the Spartan slept in cryo. In 2556, Cortana compiled a history of the Forerunners and humanity and shared it with the still-unconscious Spartan. She later took the opportunity to overhaul and upgrade John's Mark VI MJOLNIR armor, making modifications to its layout using nanomachines while also rewriting its firmware. She also restored artificial gravity at some point during this period.

Arrival at Requiem
Around July 20th, 2557, four years and seven months after the armistice that ended the Human-Covenant War, Cortana noticed that the ship's intruder alarms had been activated and attempted to wake John-117 from cryo-sleep. After being awoken, John fought off the intruders, who turned out to be Sangheili and Unggoy. The Chief and Cortana soon realized that a Covenant fleet had surrounded the Forward Unto Dawn ' s remains while multiple boarding craft docked with the heavily damaged frigate. During the fight through the ship, the Master Chief managed to launch one of the ship's Hyperion nuclear missiles and destroy a CCS-class battlecruiser. Shortly after, John and Cortana crashed on the Forerunner shield world known as Requiem. The remnants of the Dawn did not survive atmospheric entry and the ship was torn to pieces, scattered all over an area of the planet.

Trivia

 * On the lower part of the bow there is a black "7" inside a yellow star with a yellow chevron under it, which shows the ship's assignment to the Seventh Fleet. This is one of Bungie's myriad references to the number seven.
 * All three frigates in the level The Storm, (one of them being Aegis Fate), use the same textures as Forward Unto Dawn.
 * Like the main vessels of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, (Pillar of Autumn and In Amber Clad, respectively), Forward Unto Dawn serves as the main vessel in Halo 3 ' s campaign and is likewise destroyed near the end of the game.
 * In the level The Ark, player characters may be killed by the debris pushed outward by the frigate's approach.
 * In Halo 3 ' s epilogue and in Origins, the leading edge of the Dawn ' s aft section is aglow with the heat generated by the portal's collapse, despite years having elapsed. This is because there is no air into which the heat can radiate; the only other way the heat could radiate would be to disperse throughout the hull. In Halo 4, the leading edge appears to have cooled, despite the game beginning no more than a few hours after Halo 3 ' s Legendary ending.
 * The structure of the ship changes significantly between Halo 3 and 4. The leading edge of the ship - clean-cut and glowing red-hot from Halo 3's Legendary ending - is cooled and appears torn apart. More drastic, however, is that ship in Halo 4 is much larger than in Halo 3 and bears features distinctly different from the frigate's past depiction.

List of appearances

 * Halo 3
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * Halo: First Strike (2010)
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
 * Halo 4