Sh'wada-pattern supercarrier

The Sh'wada-pattern supercarrier, is a powerful supermassive capital ship and one of the largest vessel classes formerly used by the Covenant, primarily designed for command and control duties for fleets, as well as support for occupation forces. Such vessels are typically deployed only during invasions of worlds with high strategic value.

Design details
The supercarrier is an extremely large and well-equipped ornate capital ship, easily dwarfing most other Covenant starship classes. The vessel looks nearly identical to the, sharing the smaller ship's design of several bulbous sections and a hook-like prow, albeit painted darker. Despite this, it is not the only, or even the largest of the Covenant's supercarrier classes.

Classification
The "S", or Salvation, in the supercarrier's three-letter classification code, "CSO" indicates that the carrier is a dedicated warship. The "O", or Ordained, indicates that the CSO-class supercarrier is not a mission type and has been improved upon with Forerunner technology. The ship has a very broad overlap with the Covenant's ship classification of exarchs.

Along with the Covenant's assault carriers, the Sh'wada-pattern supercarrier was designated a Class-Five flagship carrier by the United Nations Space Command due to their use as a flagship of Covenant fleets.

Ships of the line

 * Long Night of Solace - Flagship of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence. Destroyed during Operation: UPPER CUT.

Operational history
The Sh'wada-pattern of supercarrier was introduced during the Fourth Age of Conversion.

During the Fall of Reach, the supercarrier Long Night of Solace spearheaded the Covenant invasion of Reach as the flagship of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, deploying numerous ground assets to the surface of Reach via teleportation spires and destroying the.

During Operation: UPPER CUT and LEFT JAB, Spartan Jorge-052 transported an improvised slipspace bomb toward Long Night of Solace aboard the corvette Ardent Prayer while SPARTAN-B312 locked course with the supercarrier. After SPARTAN-B312 was jettisoned from the hangar, Jorge manually detonated the bomb, destroying both the corvette and the supercarrier at the cost of his own life.

Production notes
During the production of Halo: Silent Storm, author Troy Denning intended for the under-construction supercarrier Hammer of Faith to be the sister-ship of Long Night of Solace - thus making it a Sh'wada-pattern supercarrier. This mention was ultimately removed from the book at the request of 343 Industries, leaving Hammer of Faith simply a supercarrier of unknown classification. Of note, Denning used an image of the Sh'wada-pattern supercarrier from this website as reference while describing Hammer of Faith, though at the time of the book's writing this page erroneously had an image of the assault carrier model from the same level in place - meaning that Denning was inadvertently describing the wrong ship than what he intended.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: Fleet Battles
 * Halo Mythos: A Guide to the Story of Halo