Epsilon Indi system

The Epsilon Indi system was the system that the Human colony world of Harvest was in. Described as being approximately six weeks away from the nearest human colony Madrigal, and a little more than two months from Reach. This means Epsilon Indi is approximately 88 light years from Madrigal, and 117 light years from Reach. The system was first colonized in 2468. There was one habitable planet in the system. Sif an AI that operates all of Harvest's orbital elevators often wonders why colonize this world. The reason for her thoughts is that Epsilon Indi was more than a little out of the way, but the only answer that she could come up with was Harvest. The fact that Harvest was habitable was enough to elicit a colonization effort.

It contained an amber sun in the middle and three planets, one of which, Harvest, was habitable. All were in close orbit. It was briefly occupied by the UNSC around 2525 and was a new colony at the time. The UNSC established a population of three million citizens and an orbital platform orbiting the planet, but it was still considered to be on the frontier of explored space.

In 2525, the Covenant sent a ship into the system. It was the Human's first contact with the Covenant and the Covenant glassed Harvest. In 2531, The Battle of Harvest took place in the system and the UNSC took it back from the Covenant.

It is unclear who currently possesses the Epsilon Indi system. Planet Harvest is dead, and so neither the UNSC nor the Covenant have any real tactical value for the system.

It should be noted that six ships fled the planet before it was glassed. The Covenant destroyed five of them. The one that escaped carried Shane, a future Spartan III (Shane was part of the first unit of Spartan-IIIs, Alpha Company).

Trivia
The Epsilon Indi system exists in real life, but it is only 11 light years from Earth, whereas Epsilon Indi in Halo: Contact Harvest is described as being over a hundred light years from Reach (which is only ten light years from Earth). Whether or not this is an oversight, or a deliberate reference to another fictional star is unknown.

While it is said that 6 ships fled Harvest after the Covenant attack the planet, in Halo: Contact Harvest it is stated that 214 freight containers packed with over 230,000 people (22 freight containers wre lost when the number seven strand of the Space Elevator snaps killing 20,000 people) and 2 "grease buckets" carring Avery Johnson, Jilan al-Cygni and their men escaped.