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United Nations Space Command: Difference between revisions
→The Human-Covenant War
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By [[2552]], the UNSC, outnumbered and out-gunned, had managed to slow down the Covenant's inexorable progress through former human space, but the situation was dire. In desperation, [[HIGHCOM]] ordered a high-risk op, sending the SPARTAN-II super soldiers, the best soldiers ever fielded by humanity, to insert into Covenant space, capture a high-ranking [[Prophet]], and return to UNSC space in an attempt to ransom for a truce. Before this particular operation began, the Covenant found and destroyed the human stronghold planet [[Reach]], killing most of the Spartans and a large portion of the UNSCDF, inadvertently stopping the SPARTAN-III operation and rendering a vast amount of the super soldiers [[MIA]]. | By [[2552]], the UNSC, outnumbered and out-gunned, had managed to slow down the Covenant's inexorable progress through former human space, but the situation was dire. In desperation, [[HIGHCOM]] ordered a high-risk op, sending the SPARTAN-II super soldiers, the best soldiers ever fielded by humanity, to insert into Covenant space, capture a high-ranking [[Prophet]], and return to UNSC space in an attempt to ransom for a truce. Before this particular operation began, the Covenant found and destroyed the human stronghold planet [[Reach]], killing most of the Spartans and a large portion of the UNSCDF, inadvertently stopping the SPARTAN-III operation and rendering a vast amount of the super soldiers [[MIA]]. | ||
A single ship, the {{UNSCShip|Pillar of Autumn}} managed to escape the planet, with two SPARTANs on board, [[Linda-058]], who was presumably | A single ship, the {{UNSCShip|Pillar of Autumn}} managed to escape the planet, with two SPARTANs on board, [[Linda-058]], who was presumably killed in the [[Fall of Reach]] and [[John-117]]. The ship followed coordinates derived by the A.I. [[Cortana (AI)|Cortana]] to a ringworld known as [[Halo Array|Halo]]. There John-117 destroyed a large Covenant fleet and the ringworld itself. He also encountered a parasitic lifeform known as the [[Flood]], the species that the ring, [[Halo Array|Halo]], had been built to starve. The major side-effect of the activation of the ring would lead to the extinction of all life within three radii of the galactic center. John-117 destroyed the ring, believing it to be too powerful, by detonation of the reactor of the Pillar of Autumn. After hijacking a Covenant Flagship known as the ''[[Ascendant Justice]]'', the SPARTAN reunited with the remaining survivors from Installation 04 and the destruction of Reach and attacked a force of Covenant ships in [[Operation: FIRST STRIKE]], one of the most successful UNSC operations against the Covenant in the entire war. | ||
By October of [[2552]], the Covenant had haphazardly discovered the position of the human home world, Earth, and sent a preliminary task force there, believing it to be the location of the [[Installation 00|Ark]], an ancient Forerunner relic. They encountered staunch resistance, and were initially fended off. Further complications arose from the political and religious crisis that emerged in the wake of a UNSC operation to assassinate the [[Prophet of Regret]], and the secession of the [[Sangheili]] from the hegemony, leading to the [[Great Schism|Covenant Civil War]], further throwing the Covenant into chaos. Nevertheless, by November, what was left of the [[Covenant Loyalists]] had subjugated large parts of Africa, devastating much of the planet. Only their retreat through a Forerunner [[The Artifact|portal]] in [[Africa]], and the arrival of the [[Sangheili Fleet]], stopped the utter destruction of the UNSC and Earth itself. | By October of [[2552]], the Covenant had haphazardly discovered the position of the human home world, Earth, and sent a preliminary task force there, believing it to be the location of the [[Installation 00|Ark]], an ancient Forerunner relic. They encountered staunch resistance, and were initially fended off. Further complications arose from the political and religious crisis that emerged in the wake of a UNSC operation to assassinate the [[Prophet of Regret]], and the secession of the [[Sangheili]] from the hegemony, leading to the [[Great Schism|Covenant Civil War]], further throwing the Covenant into chaos. Nevertheless, by November, what was left of the [[Covenant Loyalists]] had subjugated large parts of Africa, devastating much of the planet. Only their retreat through a Forerunner [[The Artifact|portal]] in [[Africa]], and the arrival of the [[Sangheili Fleet]], stopped the utter destruction of the UNSC and Earth itself. | ||