Ascendant Justice

Ascendant Justice

The Ascendant Justice was a Covenant Flagship, one of the ships in the Fleet of Particular Justice, and probably used to command large Fleets. It was the ship that the Master Chief and the survivors of Installation 04 took over in the book "Halo: First Strike".

Background
It has seven Plasma Turrets and was noted to have three thousand Covenant personnel, mostly Engineers, along with an unusually small crew of combat personnel: a light company of Grunts and only a hundred Elites. There were apparently enough Engineers on board to merit them having an access tunnel of their own. The Master Chief noted that he "hadn't seen anything like this on the Truth and Reconciliation," and that it was "armed like a ship of war... yet had the support staff of a refit vessel."

History
The ship was present at the destruction of Installation 04, searching the wreckage for transmissions from survivors. It was boarded and captured by a small team of UNSC forces, among them was John-117 (Master Chief), and Sergeant Johnson, who used it to return to Reach and evacuate a small number of Spartan survivors, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Dr. Halsey, as well as a Forerunner artifact from the planet, attaching to the wreckage of the UNSC Frigate Gettysburg for additional power and escaping through Slipspace to the Eridanus Secundus System, becoming the first ship to ever go into slipspace so close to a planet. It was forced to engage multiple Covenant warships, such as Cruisers and Carriers, in an alternate slipspace. To make things worse, some surviving Elite crewmembers had sabotaged the Ascendant Justice's main power conduit, forcing the Spartans to go on an extravehicular mission. This mission resulted in the deaths of the entire surviving Elite crew, but also killed Warrant Officer Polaski, Anton-044, and Li-008.

The ship received assistance from remaining Eridanus Rebels in a small asteroid colony, who provided personnel and repairs for the ships weaponry, before being discovered by the Covenant. Though the Ascendant Justice engaged the initial Covenant forces in ship-to-ship battle, reinforcements arrived en masse, forcing it to abandon the colony to the Covenant.

Vice Admiral Whitcomb initiated Operation: FIRST STRIKE. The UNSC-commandeered Ascendant Justice then inserted John and his Spartans near the Unyielding Hierophant in a slightly-modified Spirit Dropship, and started a self-destruct sequence in one of the station's reactor rooms. The Spartans managed to escape from the station and travel to the far side of a near moon where the Gettysburg was waiting for them. Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson had detached the Ascendant Justice from the Gettysburg and taken it in a slingshot orbit around the moon. Vice Admiral Whitcomb pretended to have the Forerunner crystal (by using a hologram) and challenged the Covenant to come and claim it (the Covenant did not want to fire on the Ascendant Justice because the crystal was supposedly on it). He used the momentum from their slingshot orbit to crash into the station even after the Covenant had melted the ship's engines off with plasma torpedoes. Whitcomb then ordered Spartan-117 to see what was left of the Covenant and then "hightail the Intel back to Earth." The last few seconds of visual and audio record from the Ascendant Justice showed the door crashing to the ground and the Admiral opening fire with an SMG. The reactors on the Unyielding Hierophant then overloaded and exploded, destroying the Ascendant Justice and over four hundred enemy vessels. Only a few Covenant ships survived the catastrophe. Both Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson are listed as Killed in Action.

The Ascendant Justice's Slipspace drive allowed the Gettysburg to reach Earth and warn the UNSC leadership of the Covenant's plans to reach Earth. It is not currently known what has become of the Ascendant Justices Slipspace drive, though it is assumed that it was studied by UNSC technicians.

Only four members of the Ascendant Justice ' s original Covenant crew survived its capture. A Special Operations Elite who engaged the Master Chief in hand-to-hand combat was shot and pushed into an escape pod. This may have been the Arbiter, but there is no proof. The future Arbiter was mentioned as "the incompetent one who lost the Ascendant Justice" at the end of First Strike, and the High Prophet of Truth instructed Tartarus to "let his fate match the magnitude of his failure.". A few Engineers were taken to Earth on the Gettysburg and were then turned over to ONI scientists.

Trivia

 * In the Halo Graphic Novel story The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, the Flagship of the Fleet of Particular Justice is indicated to be the Seeker of Truth. This would make the Ascendant Justice appear to be a secondary flagship, kept in case the main one was destroyed or evacuated.
 * The ship was equipped with an escape vessel, which may be a feature exclusive to the ship.
 * When the Ascendant Justice first arrived at Reach in the greeting that Cortana received, someone called the 'Guardian of the Luminous Key' was supposed to be in command of the ship, according to the string of honorifics attached to the greeting. This guardian could be the Supreme Commander that would eventually become the Arbiter.
 * When Spartan-117 and the others traveled back to Earth on the Gettysburg, they took with them Covenant Engineers to debrief with ONI.
 * The Ascendant Justice's computer had a software replication program which allowed Cortana to make imperfect replications of herself, which made it easier to destroy The Unyielding Hierophant.
 * There is a popular Halo blog presumably named after the ship.
 * The ship is very heavily armed, though it contains a very small amount of combat personal.
 * The Master Chief confronted a energy sword-wielding Sangheili warrior in close combat near the bridge of this ship. The Master Chief pushed him into an escape pod and ejected him into space, rather than killing him. A popular theory among Halo fans is that this Elite may be Thel 'Vadamee, the future Arbiter. However, the Elite is described as wearing black armor and suddenly appearing into view, muddying this claim.
 * The Sangheili fought by the Master Chief is severely wounded in the melee; 'Vadamee appears completely unharmed in Halo 2's cutscenes.