2552

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2552

The Covenant's final stand during the last battle of the war.

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26th century

Previous: 2550 • 2551
Next: 2553 • 2554

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For a complete list, see our timeline category.

2552 was a year in the 2550s in the 26th century. It was the ultimate year of the Human-Covenant War, during which the humans of the United Nations Space Command nearly saw utter defeat and extinction, though the tide turned, and with significant help from the Sangheili, they managed to win the war. The Covenant were at the peak of their power and reach in 2552, with major assaults on the human Inner Colonies and an invasion followed by a prolonged engagement on their home planet, Earth. During the battle at Installation 04, the galaxy found its first large outbreak of the Flood threat in over a hundred thousand years. Over one month later, an even larger outbreak occurred at Installation 05.

The war finally drew to a close at Installation 00, known more commonly as the Ark, with the humans and Sangheili attempting to kill the High Prophet of Truth, before he could activate the remaining Halo installations. The alliance was successful in their mission against the Covenant and ended the 27 year long war.

Events

Before June

• The Battle of Beta Eridani takes place when the Fleet of Valiant Prudence invades the system. The UNSC is defeated and Rho 'Barutamee takes control of several Forerunner artifacts that lead him to another system.

January

January 8

• A team of ODST's (Including Kojo Agu and Taylor H. Miles) descend onto Ariel (a small science colony) in response to a distress call on the planet in Operation: FIRESIDE.

February

February

• Insurrectionists on Harmony disable the planet's primary communications relay and steal two drydocked freighters.

March

March 9

• An entry is recorded in a UNSC Archive regarding a UNSC Excavation site headed by BXR Mining Corporation being bombarded by the Covenant. The miners managing to get the ore being mined to the surface before the mine totally collapsed.

April

April 22

• Battle of Fumirole: Noble Team member Thom-A293 destroys a Ket-pattern battlecruiser but kills himself in the process, and Catherine-B320 loses her arm. She subsequently receives a robotic prosthetic.

Unknown Date

• The UNSC Iroquois finishes construction.

May

May 10

• SPARTAN-B312 takes part in a counter-insurgency operation on Mamore. The Spartan's skills as a Sabre pilot are exhibited during the op, prompting Colonel Urban Holland to have him transferred to Noble Team.

May 14 through May 19

• UNSC forces in the Earth Defense Coordination Zone are placed at maximum readiness levels and all warships with magnetic accelerator cannons are self-deployed or towed to rally points. Cairo Station is established as flag headquarters.

May 24

• Smart AI Gabriela is activated.

July

Unknown date

• The Battle of New Jerusalem takes place sometime this month or the next. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Force is nearly wiped out, leaving the Rookie as one of the few survivors.

After July 5

• Gabriel Thorne single-handedly saves his entire platoon in the Battle of Criterion.

July 17

• The Slipspace monitoring probes from Remote Scanning Station Archimedes at the edge of the Sigma Octanus system encounter the Covenant ships sent to attack Sigma Octanus IV.
• The UNSC Iroquois is tasked with patrolling the Sigma Octanus star system.
• The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV begins.

July 18

• The UNSC win a victory during the battle at Sigma Octanus IV. Commander Jacob Keyes, of the UNSC Iroquois, plays a critical role in this success when he devises the Keyes Loop maneuver. Keyes is subsequently promoted to Captain by Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth. Unknown to the UNSC, the Covenant place a tracker on the hull of the Iroquois. The importance of Reach to the UNSC is revealed to the Covenant when the Iroquois returns to that world.
• Vice Admiral Stanforth messages the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Margaret Parangosky, with information on the battle at Sigma Octanus IV, as well as the ongoing progress of Operation: BRAVADO.

July 23

• The Covenant deploy the Fleet of Valiant Prudence to sever Reach's out-system communications and search for Forerunner artifacts. This is the first stage of the Covenant's invasion of the planet.
• Noble Team finds and stops a pair of Insurrectionist SCI combatants attempting to hijack a supply transport.
• Fireteam 3 Charlie, along with other special warfare fireteams under command of Colonel Holland, are sent to investigate the areas around Longhorn Valley and Visegrád after contact with the comms relay in Visegrád is lost.

July 24

• Two months after the death of Thom-A293, SPARTAN-B312 joins Noble Team as Noble Six.
• Noble Team is sent by Colonel Holland on a mission to investigate the downed Visegrád Relay.
• Noble Team discovers the Covenant's presence on Reach for the first time at Visegrád Relay. Planetary directive WINTER CONTINGENCY is declared.

July 26

• SWORD Base, an ONI research facility on Reach, comes under attack by an Ceudar-pattern heavy corvette. The UNSC Army with the help of Noble Team successfully repel the attack and the corvette is destroyed by orbital support.

August

Unknown date

• After discovering Reach, the Covenant move on to glass the other planets in the system, including Tribute, resulting in the prolonged Battle of Tribute.
• During the Battle of Tribute, SPARTAN-II Team Black is sent to Verge to destroy a Covenant Beacon supplying helium-3 to the ships laying siege on Tribute. The team successfully destroys the beacon.
• After the mission on Verge, Vice Admiral Alexander Reaves assigns Fireteam Black to Operation: BLOWBACK, a covert mission in Covenant-occupied space. Their ship, as well as a Covenant carrier, crash-land on an unknown moon, igniting the Battle of Line Installation 1-4.
• Margaret-053 is captured by Forerunner Gatherers. Team Black and the Covenant forces on the moon enter into a reluctant alliance to rescue the Spartan.
• Fireteam Black encounters the Forerunner monitor 686 Ebullient Prism en route to rescuing Margaret-053. The monitor briefly causes rifts between the team to prevent them from rescuing their comrade. Margaret, however, escapes anyway, aided by Reff 'Talamee, and the rest of Team Black stop fighting amongst themselves.
• Team Black manages to enter the control room of Line Installation 1–4, eventually destroying 686 Ebullient Prism with the installation's main gun; they also succeed in destroying the entire Covenant fleet.
• Beta Gabriel is captured by a pack of Jiralhanae under the command of Chieftain Parabum. A majority of the sparse human population is either taken prisoner or killed, including ONI agent Connor Brien, who had been sent on a mission to study the Brutes. A recon force of ODSTs are sent in to neutralize the Brutes, and are successful in doing so.
• The Battle of New Jerusalem takes place sometime this month or the previous. The 26th Marine Expeditionary Force is nearly wiped out, leaving the Rookie as one of the few survivors.
• The Raid on Mount Haven takes place. The UNSC Chares deploys ODSTs in a snatch-and-grab mission to secure the transport of a Forerunner artifact, but after a chain of events involving a group of rogue ODSTs attempting to steal gold from a bank vault, a wounded ODST manages to halt their operations with a Shiva nuclear warhead. Eventually, the surviving civilians and UNSC forces fall back to Earth, having been informed Reach was just attacked.

August 3

• Dr. Halsey decides to split Cortana in two halves, with her IEP translation routines analyzing the Forerunner structure under SWORD Base and the other half continuing with John and Blue Team in preparation for Operation: RED FLAG.

August 5

• Cortana's split is a success.

Early August (sometime from the 6th to the 12th)

• The UNSC Apocalypso crashes in lunar orbit, a slipspace anomaly knocking out communications within the Solar System for seven seconds.

August 11

• SPARTAN-B312 and Jun-A266 engage in a recon mission on Covenant forces in the colloquially named "Dark Zone", a Covenant-occupied region in the Viery Territory. The two Spartans discover a Covenant invasion force and a landing zone. Kat-B320 receives the visual and tells them to retreat so they will be prepared for the next day.

August 12

• Battle Group Leviathan and the Iroquois arrives at Reach for emergency refit and repairs. While the battle group was being repaired, Stanforth and Keyes arrived at Camp Hathcock in the Highland Mountains on Reach for debriefing. Shortly after, they returned to their respective vessels within the battle group.
• Around this time, Stanforth engages a small group from the Fleet of Valiant Prudence dispatched to retrieve a Forerunner artifact from ONI's Teller Station in the Epsilon Eridani Oort cloud; though he sends reinforcements to successfully cover the station's evacuation, he loses irreplaceable personnel and ships in the process.
• Halsey reviews the upgrades to the new MJOLNIR Mark V.
• John-117 and Corporal Harland are debriefed by ONI at Camp Hathcock, Reach, on the events on Côte d'Azur during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV.
• Battle at Szurdok Ridge: UNSC forces assault an amassing Covenant invasion force in the Viery Territory on Reach, managing to destroy two AA plasma cannons and a Covenant spire. However, the cloaked supercarrier Long Night of Solace reveals itself and destroys the frigate UNSC Grafton, which had been providing air support.

August 13

• 60% of the Epsilon Eridani Fleet is recalled to Reach, destined to arrive within the next 48 hours.

August 14

• Operation: UPPER CUT and Operation: LEFT JAB are initiated, as Noble Team retakes the Sabre Program Launch/Research Range at Farkas Lake and joins the battle in orbit, eventually capturing the Covenant corvette Ardent Prayer and using it to deliver the UNSC Savannah's Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, used as a makeshift bomb, to the Long Night of Solace . The Solace is destroyed at the cost of Jorge-052, who sacrifices himself to detonate the drive manually. Moments after the carrier's destruction, a large Covenant fleet sent by the Ministry of Resolution enters in-system.
• Following the destruction of the Solace, Kantar 'Utaralee, now acting fleetmaster of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, leads what little ships he has left in a last-ditch effort to recover Teller Station's artifact, now residing in a UNSC space station orbiting the moon of Turul.

August 17

• Smart AI Black-Box is created from a human brain donor to be the personal AI companion for Admiral Margaret Parangosky and activated on Mars.

August 18

• The Siege of New Alexandria begins as the Covenant lay siege to the city of New Alexandria.

August 23

• Noble Six arrives in New Alexandria and helps evacuate civilians from the city. He also manages to severely damage one of the corvettes laying siege to the city by use of an AA missile battery. Noble Six eventually meets up with the rest of Noble Team, and the Covenant begin glassing the city. As Noble Team is on their way to a fallout shelter under the Olympic Tower, Kat-B320 is killed by sniper fire.

August 24

• Dr. Halsey examines the rock recovered by Blue Team during Operation: OCEAN BREAKER on Sigma Octanus IV.

August 25

• Dr. Halsey and Cortana choose the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, with Jacob Keyes as its commander, for a secret mission Halsey is planning.

August 26

• The remainder of Noble Team is evacuated from the destroyed New Alexandria via a Pelican.

August 27

• All available SPARTAN-IIs gather at the FLEETCOM Military Complex on Reach, where they learn of their next mission: to acquire a Covenant vessel, navigate to the Covenant home world, and return with captured Covenant leadership.

August 29

• John-117 receives a neural interface upgrade, the second generation of MJOLNIR Mark V armor, and is introduced to Cortana.
• Noble Team is ordered to destroy Sword Base in a torch-and-burn op. During the operation, Noble Team makes their way inside Sword Base where they encounter Dr. Halsey, who asks them to protect her lab. Noble Team is then given direct orders to escort a fragment of Cortana holding crucial data from the Babd Catha Forerunner complex to the Pillar of Autumn. Halsey is then escorted back to CASTLE base by Jun-A266.

August 30

Reach falls to the Covenant.

• Cortana has ONI Colonel James Ackerson illicitly transferred to the front. This is her revenge for his attempts to eliminate both her and John-117.
• First Lieutenant Jake Chapman, along with most of Charlie Company is killed during the Fall of Reach.
• The Covenant, despite sustaining heavy losses, wins a crushing victory at the Fall of Reach. Many of the remaining SPARTAN-IIs are killed.
• The surviving SPARTAN-IIs on Reach are separated into two groups. One recovers Vice Admiral Whitcomb and goes into hiding at Camp Independence. The others are admitted into CASTLE Base by Dr. Halsey and receive parts of the MJOLNIR Mark V upgrade and new weapons.
• Dr. Halsey learns of Colonel Ackerson's mysterious plans that seem to involve "her" Spartans.
• The three surviving members of Noble Team arrive at Asźod; Carter-A259's Pelican becomes too badly damaged to continue carrying them all, so Noble Six and Emile-A239 deploy to the ground.
• Battle of Asźod: The Covenant forces throughout Asźod attempt to stop Noble Six and Emile from reaching the Pillar of Autumn, going so far as to deploy Scarabs against them. Carter sacrifices himself when he steers his damaged Pelican into a Scarab, destroying it. Emile and Six proceed to push towards the ship breaking yards and rendezvous with the scant UNSC forces still attempting to defend the facility. After clearing most of the facility, Six, Emile, and several Trooper squads meet up with Captain Jacob Keyes, successfully delivering the fragment of Cortana. However, Emile is killed by a Sangheili Zealot.
• SPARTAN-B312 destroys a Ket-pattern battlecruiser with a mass driver to allow the Pillar of Autumn to escape Reach. The Spartan is killed by Sangheili soon after. The Autumn jumps away from the system, with Cortana using Forerunner navigation data from the Sigma Octanus IV artifact as well as the Babd Catha Forerunner complex.

September

Unknown date

• The planet Coral is reported glassed by the Covenant.

September 4

• Lieutenant Wagner returns to Earth and reports on the evident destruction of Reach to the UNSC Security Council (Colonel James Ackerson, Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood, and Major General Nicolas Strauss) at HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, Australia. Hood determines that the location of Earth is compromised and decides that all ONI theatres of operation must be relocated. The Security Council also begins planning for the final defense of Earth.
• ONI launches an investigation of a SecNet conversation between Sergeants Joseph M. Poteet (Username: TRIGTECH) and Alasdair R. Schicker (Username: GLancer) to discover whether they might have accidentally leaked the location of Reach to the Covenant.

September 5

• UNSC fleet actions in the Reach Defense Coordination Zone conclude.
• All remaining naval forces are consolidated into a single command grouping: the UNSC Home Fleet.
• Fleet Admiral Joseph Harper of the Fifth Fleet is appointed senior flag officer of the Home Fleet and given primary administrative and tasking authority over all assets in the Sol system under emergency directives authorized by UNSC High Command and approved by the UEG Security Council.

September 14

• A new set of Orbital Defense Platforms over Earth are scheduled to come online.

September 18

• Around 2200 hours ship time: Captain Keyes and other key crew wake up on the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, and check the status of the ship.

September 19

• Captain Keyes and crew make it to the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn and ask Cortana to shut down all systems before returning to normal space. The Pillar of Autumn then leaves slipspace, and glides around Basis into Threshold's orbit, at which point Cortana detects a radio echo in the shadow of Threshold.
• 0103 hours ship time: The Pillar of Autumn cryo team prepare to wake John-117 under orders from Captain Keyes. Meanwhile, the Covenant Fleet of Particular Justice prepare to attack the Pillar of Autumn.
• The Battle of Installation 04 begins.
• 0120 hours ship time: Keyes learns of the Covenant presence in the system and decides to wake the whole crew out of cryo.
• 0127 hours ship time: The Fleet of Particular Justice finally strike the Pillar of Autumn. John-117 is also woken from cryo sleep around this time and tasked with preventing Cortana's capture by the Covenant. John-117 and Cortana escape the Pillar of Autumn aboard a Bumblebee escape pod, which later crashes on the ring.
• The Pillar of Autumn is forced to crash land on the ring. A significant portion of its crew survives to continue the fight on the ground.
• Captain Keyes and the others in his escape pod are captured by the Covenant. Only Keyes escapes summary execution, and is taken to the Ket-pattern Truth and Reconciliation for interrogation.
• A large group of ODSTs and survivors, under the command of Major Antonio Silva, (who assumed command of Autumn 's surviving crew after Captain Keyes' capture by the Covenant) establish Alpha Base, which serves as the main tactical firebase for the survivors and as a staging point for any future Covenant attacks.

John-117 leading Marines on Installation 04.

• John-117 leads a Marine force to board the Truth and Reconciliation. They recover Keyes and escape aboard a Covenant dropship.

September 20

• Keyes orders John-117 to find the "Silent Cartographer", a map room that will reveal the location of the Control Room. Keyes leaves to lead an assault on a Covenant weapons cache.
• Having found the map room and the pertinent information, Cortana directs a Pelican to take them to the area where the ring's Control Room is. Upon reaching the Control Room, Cortana transfers to the Control Room's computer and directs John-117 to stop Keyes from accessing the 'weapons cache', in reality a Forerunner Flood containment facility.
• Before transporting the Chief to the supposed weapons cache, Carol Rawley records a mission report detailing their underground insertion near the Control Room. This report is entered into the UNSC Archives.
• John-117, without Cortana, enters the supposed weapons cache but is unable to locate Keyes. Instead, he discovers the Flood and is forced to retreat. He links up with marines and takes command of the surviving members of Keyes' team and together they fight their way to the extraction point. However, the Spartan is conscripted by 343 Guilty Spark and teleported away before he can be evacuated with the surviving members.
• Major Silva and the others under his command abandon Alpha Base after discovering a large Flood infestation beneath the base. They then learn that the Truth and Reconciliation has been abandoned and lead a strike force to capture the ship.
• The Flood succeed in capturing the Covenant dropship Brilliant Gift, and use it to crash-land on board the Covenant ship Infinite Succor, in orbit above Installation 04, with the intent to spread itself to the rest of the Fleet of Particular Justice. This is avoided when Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadumee sets the Infinite Succor on a crash-course vector for the system's star, Soell. Rtas 'Vadumee is the only survivor.
• The SPARTAN-IV program enters development under the oversight of Admiral Margaret Parangosky, CINCONI. The project's existence is kept secret from both Dr. Catherine Halsey and Colonel James Ackerson, the respective creators of the SPARTAN-II and SPARTAN-III programs.

September 21

• The Monitor takes John-117 to the ring's Library to retrieve the Activation Index, a device needed to activate the ring's primary weapon. Having retrieved the Index, the Monitor teleports the Spartan back to the Control Room where an irate Cortana confiscates the Index and prevents the ring from firing. John-117 and Cortana flee a now-hostile 343 Guilty Spark and Sentinels.
• To forestall the ring from being activated manually, John-117 disables the ring's three phase pulse generators. This is to buy time to destroy the ring by activating the auto-destruct on the Pillar of Autumn. Only Keyes' command neural interface can activate the ship's self-destruct, and John-117 embarks once more to rescue the captain.
• The failed attempt to activate Alpha Halo results in the first Onyx Sentinels appearing.

September 22

• Cortana teleports John-117 to the now Flood-overrun Truth and Reconciliation where Jacob Keyes is being held. Alas, the pair arrives too late to save Keyes, who has been merged into a proto-Gravemind. John-117 retrieves the neural interface by punching in the former-captain's head. Cortana downloads the necessary codes, and the duo returns to the Pillar of Autumn on a captured Banshee.
• Major Silva's forces arrive at the Truth and Reconciliation and take over the ship through a combined surprise assault on the vessel's hangar bay and gravity lift. They also manage to capture the cruiser's prophet, the Prophet of Stewardship. After capturing the cruiser, Major Silva intends to fly the ship back to Earth in order to be recognized as the hero of the Battle of Installation 04; this acts a both a huge violation of the Cole Protocol and risks spreading the Flood. First Lieutenant Melissa McKay realizes this, so, in a snap-decision, she severs the primary optical fiber cable that linked controls from the bridge to engineering with a fragmentation grenade, thereby causing the cruiser to lose control and crash onto the surface of Halo.
• 343 Guilty Spark overrides the auto-destruct sequence, forcing John-117 to manually destabilize the ship's still-functioning fusion cores. John-117 and Cortana then escape the resulting explosion and the fragmentation of the ring aboard a Longsword.
• Staff Sergeant Johnson, Lieutenant Haverson, Warrant Officer Polaski, and Corporal Locklear also escape the destruction of the ring aboard a Pelican.
• In the course of the ring's destruction, a fragment of Installation 04 enters slipspace. This fragment later re-enters normal space in the vicinity of a red giant star.
• The Battle of Installation 04 ends. John-117 and Cortana rendezvous with Johnson's group in Installation 04's debris field. They also recover a set of cryo chambers, one which contains Linda-058.
• Skirmish over Threshold: As the Longsword and Pelican are not jump capable, the UNSC survivors assault and capture the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice. They then set course for Reach.
• Jersey Morelli confronts his mother about having an affair.

September 23

• The month's temporal anomaly is seemingly rectified by this date.
• After the destruction of Installation 04, Installation 00 commences the construction of the replacement for Installation 04.

September 26

• ONI agent Jameson Locke compiles a target profile report concerning Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee, detailing 'Vadamee's personal history from the start of the Human-Covenant War to the glassing of Reach.

September's anomaly

After the recovery of a Forerunner device on Reach, the members of an organized resistance comprised of Spartans from Reach and survivors of the Battle of Installation 04 are in some sort of time anomaly, causing them not to be in the "correct timeline". What is known is that the events take place with the possession of the device after September 7.

John-117 and Marine survivors fighting on the Ascendant Justice.

September 7

• The time/date record anomaly of Sept 23, 2552 most likely rejoins the correct timeline.
• Dr. Halsey and members of Red Team discover an enigmatic shard in a Forerunner installation below CASTLE Base. They are besieged by Covenant forces who seek to possess the shard.
• Dr. Halsey initiates Operation: WHITE GLOVE, destroying CASTLE Base, thus preventing the Covenant forces above from capturing any UNSC or Forerunner technology. Halsey and members of Red Team are protected from the resulting detonation when they hide in the caves beneath the base.
• The remaining Spartans, Admiral Whitcomb, Dr. Halsey, Sgt. Johnson, Lieutenant Haverson, Warrant Officer Polaski, and Corporal Locklear jump to Slipspace on board the Covenant/UNSC hybrid ship UNSC Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice, and discover that the shard seems to have the ability to bend both space and time.

September 12

• The Gettysburg/Ascendant Justice arrives for refit and provisioning in the Eridanus system.
• Vice Admiral Whitcomb secures a meeting with rebel leader Governor Jacob Jiles, attempting to reason with him that the Covenant would most likely arrive to claim the Forerunner crystal. When several Covenant warships emerge from slipspace, Jiles agrees to help the UNSC forces.
• Dr. Halsey sedates Kelly-087, and absconds with her on Governor Jiles' personal ship, the Chiroptera-class Beatrice. Before she goes, she gives the Forerunner crystal to Corporal Locklear, with implicit instructions to destroy it.
• A large Covenant fleet enters the Eridanus system, forcing the hand of Admiral Whitcomb; he pulls out and retreats, as does the Gettysburg/Ascendant Justice, leaving the rebels to their doom.
• Governor Jiles is killed and the Eridanus rebels are destroyed during the Massacre at Eridanus Secundus. Eridanus Secundus itself is destroyed by the Covenant.

September 13

• UNSC forces aboard the Gettysburg/Ascendant Justice win a crucial victory at the Battle of the Unyielding Hierophant. SPARTAN-093, Lieutenant Haverson of ONI and Vice Admiral Whitcomb are killed. The survivors, now aboard the singular UNSC Gettysburg and with a captured Covenant slipspace drive, depart for Earth to warn of the impending Covenant invasion.

October

Unknown date

• An edict from the Office of the High Prophet of Truth orders that in the virtue of the Jiralhanae, all Sangheili posted with the Fleet of Profound Solitude, the Fleet of Tranquil Composure, and the Fleet of Inner Knowledge to be completely replaced by Jiralhanae. Each removed Sangheili to be assigned other duties. In celebration, all imprisoned or criminal Jiralhanae were released, rehabilitated, and pardoned.
• ODST Sarah Palmer, the future commander of the SPARTAN-IVs on UNSC Infinity, rescues Admiral Kovalic and a vital AI from a planet under Covenant attack. Wounded in action, Palmer is sent to Lockhart medical facility to recover.

October 8

• After escaping from the Battle of Tribute, the freighter Floral Express discovers Installation 03.
• Admiral J. Garcia forwards Log 01–0089 to UNSC High Command, which contains the preliminary reports of action during the Defense of Reach.

October 9

• Doctor O. Cheng forwards Log 01–0921, an intelligence report incorporating recent naval losses during the Fall of Reach, to the UNSC Security Council.

October 10

• The UNSC Navy's Third Fleet, and specifically Battle Group Rhino loses the UNSC Totem Lake in the Battle of October 10.

October 17

• Captain W. Murray reports an after-action report of the Battle of October 10 in the form of 83 files later termed Log 01–0991.

October 19

• Aboard Cairo Station, Sergeant Johnson is interrogated by Dr. Veronica Clayton of ONI in regards to the events surrounding Operation: First Strike.
• Cortana details the Battle of Installation 04 to ONI.
• During a routine seismic scan, Vergil, a subroutine of New Mombasa's Superintendent AI, discovers a seismic anomaly underneath the city. The report is accessed by Dr. Daniel Endesha, a scientist responsible for the management of the AI.

October 20

The Battle of Earth at Mombasa.

• John-117 is outfitted with the MJOLNIR Mk. VI aboard Cairo Station.
• 1248 hours: Io Station detects a possible Covenant sighting in the Sol system and contacts the UNSC Home Fleet. Cortana, on board the Cairo, receives the message and briefs Lord Hood.
• On High Charity, Thel 'Vadamee, the disgraced Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, is deemed a heretic by the Covenant High Council and is sentenced to death for his failure to safeguard Installation 04 one month prior.
• John-117 and Staff Sergeant (now promoted to Sergeant Major) Johnson are awarded the Colonial Cross at a ceremony aboard Cairo Station. Captain Keyes is awarded posthumously and the decoration is entrusted to his daughter, Miranda Keyes.
• Instead of being executed, 'Vadamee is given the title of Arbiter by the High Prophets of Truth and Mercy, and sent to Threshold with Rtas 'Vadumee and Tartarus on a mission to eliminate a band of heretics led by Sesa 'Refumee. Following 'Refumee's death, the group recovers 343 Guilty Spark.
• The High Prophet of Regret's fleet eventually arrives at Earth, not expecting any human presence. The vastly outnumbered Covenant force attacks the UNSC Home Fleet without seeking support from other Covenant forces, precipitating the Battle for Earth.
• 1412 hours: Lord Hood and Fleet Admiral Harper coordinate Earth's orbital defense during the opening stages.
• 1421 hours: Malta Station and Athens Station are destroyed, clearing the way for the first attack wave.
• 1450 hours: John-117 foils a Covenant attempt to destroy the Cairo and instead uses the bomb to sabotage the Day of Jubilation, one of Regret's only two assault carriers.
• 1459 hours: Having successfully made it planetside, Regret's remaining carrier and flagship, Solemn Penance, initiates a ground assault on New Mombasa.
• John-117 is recovered by the UNSC In Amber Clad and deploys to Mombasa in an attempt to capture the Prophet.
• The civilian populace begins to evacuate; Dr. Endesha's daughter Sadie and former NMPD cop Mike Branley navigate the war-torn streets of New Mombasa with the help of Vergil in order to reach her father in the New Mombasa Data Center. However, the corrupt police commissioner, Kinsler, in an act of vengeance against Sadie for refusing his previous sexual advances, has his men kill her father with argon gas by tripping the data center's fire suppression system.
• During the fighting, the Covenant damage the Superintendent's data systems; a lone Huragok survives and starts to repair the AI, saving Vergil by starting to absorb it into its own system. Kinsler, intending to take Sadie a prisoner as he leaves the city, is killed by Vergil after the subroutine allows a mob to tear him apart. Despite Sadie's pleas to stay and find him, Vergil sends her off on a train with Mike towards Nairobi, saving her life.
• 1512 hours: Designated a Tier One Asset, the UNSC identifies the Huragok as being at risk of being killed or captured by the Covenant.
• 1557 hours: Elsewhere in the city, ODST squad Alpha-Five participates in an unsuccessful mission to retrieve a Forerunner device called the Conduit from Covenant hands.
• 1602 hours: As part of a mission to take down the Solemn Penance from orbit, a squad of ODSTs led by ONI Captain Veronica Dare and Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck, consisting of Corporal Taylor "Dutch" Miles, Lance Corporal Kojo "Romeo" Agu, PFC Michael "Mickey" Crespo, and the Rookie, drop into New Mombasa from the UNSC Say My Name.
• 1603 hours: With Regret afraid of being overrun, the Solemn Penance initiates an in-atmosphere Slipspace jump to escape the city; while the In Amber Clad manages to pursue the carrier through the rift, the resulting explosion severely damages New Mombasa's infrastructure as well as scatters Alpha-Nine's drop pods across the city.
• Having tailed Regret to Earth, a Jiralhanae-led Covenant occupation force is inserted into New Mombasa immediately after Regret's retreat as a part of the Prophet of Truth's plan to eventually replace the Sangheili with the Jiralhanae as the Covenant's primary warrior race. For the rest of the day, UNSC and Covenant forces battle for control of the city.
• 1606 hours: Gunnery Sergeant Buck lands at Tayari Plaza and assists Marine forces in combating the Covenant. Though he fails to link up with Captain Dare, he regroups with Lance Corporal Agu.
• 1636 hours: Corporal Miles assists an unidentified colonel in securing Regret's old landing zone within the Uplift Nature Reserve.
• 1649 hours: Due to structural damage caused by the Slipspace explosion, the Mombasa Tether implodes and collapses, killing the colonel and scattering Marine forces into disarray. Miles manages to escape the reserve shortly after. By this point, the Covenant occupies 38% of the city.
• 1736 hours: PFC Crespo leads a Scorpion charge to assist Marines in clearing out Kizingo Boulevard and reaching their rally point, where he reunites with Miles.
• 1806 hours: Crespo and Miles aid the New Mombasa Police Department in preventing the Covenant from accessing important data housed in ONI's Alpha Site.
• 1852 hours: The troopers are forced to fall back and extract via police Pelican while Buck contacts Miles and Crespo to request a pick-up at the police headquarters. Crespo then detonates the Alpha Site to deny it to the Covenant. The resulting explosion inadvertently awakens a large Drone hive in the tunnels below the base. By this point, the Covenant occupies 51% of the city.
• 1936 hours: En route to the police HQ, Miles and Crespo's Pelican is shot down; Buck and Agu rescue them after a holding action that wounds Agu in the process.
• 2106 hours: Buck and his squad regroup; realizing the trains out of the city are flooded, they capture a Phantom at Kikowani Station in an effort to escape.
• 2141 hours: Remaining Covenant cruisers coalesce over New Mombasa.
• 2206 hours: The Rookie wakes up from the drop and starts to search the streets of New Mombasa for his squadmates.
• 2215 hours: Cruisers begin excavation of the crater left behind by the Slipspace explosion, which Buck witnesses from Kikowani.
• 2227 hours: By this point, the Covenant occupies 78% of the city.
• Having fled the area, Buck forces his squad to turn around after realizes where Dare went.
• 2319 hours: Dare, having holed up in the city's data center, sights and reports the Tier One Asset Huragok in the tunnels.
• 2324 hours: By this point, the Covenant occupies 94% of the city.
• The Rookie receives Dare's distress call and fights his way through the data center to link up with her; together, they capture the Huragok, which by this point has fully absorbed the Superintendent (and Vergil) into itself.
• 2359 hours: Buck arrives to help secure the Huragok, now identified as Vergil.
• The Battle of Mombasa ends with a Covenant victory.

October 21

• Buck, Dare, and the Rookie defend the Huragok as they fight their way to the surface.
• At dawn, the team witnesses continual Covenant reinforcements arriving at Earth to aid in excavation efforts. They flee down the city's Waterfront Highway and reconnect with the rest of Alpha-Nine at the entrance to the Uplift Nature Reserve. The squad manages to hold out and eventually escapes New Mombasa as the city, along with its surroundings, are glassed by the excavation fleet.

October 21 through November 17

• Following the Battle of Mombasa, Alpha-Nine and Quick to Adjust are kept in an ONI orbital facility.

October 20 through November 2

• The Spartan-II Blue Team is deployed to defend Earth during the two weeks that follow the initial Covenant invasion. They participate in numerous combat missions on and around Earth, including Battle of Ross Island in the Antarctica and an underwater operation in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Late October

• The majority of the SPARTAN-IIIs of Gamma Company are deployed into the battlefields of the Human-Covenant War, with only the top-ranked fireteams Saber, Katana, and Gladius remaining on Onyx to compete for top honors.

October 25

• The Office of Naval Intelligence sends an exploration-and-neutralization team to Gamma Halo.
• Skirmish on Mona Lisa: The UNSC Red Horse is sent to Installation 04's debris field in the Soell system to scout the area for survivors. They detect the prison ship Mona Lisa and deploy Marines into the ship. Soon after, it is revealed that the ship is infested by the Flood and was used by the Office of Naval Intelligence as a laboratory to test the parasite on prisoners. The infestation is contained as the Red Horse unleashes a Shiva-class nuclear missile on the Mona Lisa, destroying it.

October 31

• The Onyx Conflict begins.
• The standby signal rouses the Sentinels of Onyx, who destroy the UNSC base on the world.
• Team Gladius of the SPARTAN-III Gamma Company is totally wiped out by the Sentinels. Team Katana is forced into Zone 67, and Team Saber loses contact with Camp Currahee.
• Kurt-051, SCPO Franklin Mendez and Petty Officers Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091 begin to form a resistance against the Sentinels.
• The UNSC Agincourt, in high orbit above Onyx, is destroyed by Sentinels.
• Chief Mendez declares emergency code Bloody Arrow over the UNSC E-BAND.

November

The end of 2552 saw the bloodiest period of the Great War and the beginning of the end. The Prophet of Truth was killed in the later months along with a sizable Covenant armada, leaving the Covenant forces crippled and leaderless as well as the full destruction of the Gravemind and its Flood forces.

November 2

• The Battle of Installation 05 begins.
• The UNSC In Amber Clad arrives at Delta Halo, following the High Prophet of Regret's assault carrier. John-117, aided by ODSTs and marines, pursue the High Prophet to a Forerunner temple and assassinate him. However, orbital bombardment from the escorting fleets of the newly arrived High Charity destroys the temple. John-117 is thrown into a lake and captured by the Gravemind.
• The Changing of the Guard within the Covenant occurs.

November 3

Jiralhanae and Sangheili ships fighting over High Charity.

• The Great Schism begins.
• The Prophet of Conviction is killed by one of his shipmasters after learning that Conviction ordered the killings of the Sangheili councilors within the Fleet of Righteous Vigilance.
• The Arbiter is sent to Delta Halo to retrieve that installation's Index. The Arbiter is successful, but is then betrayed by Tartarus, who casts the Arbiter into the depths of the ringworld. The Arbiter is subsequently captured by Gravemind.
• Gravemind sends John-117 and the Arbiter to secure the Index and prevent the installation from being activated. John-117 is teleported to High Charity while the Arbiter is teleported close to the Control Room. Both are aided by the chaos of the Covenant civil war.
• The Flood controlled In Amber Clad jumps inside High Charity and commences its infection. The Prophet of Mercy becomes infected by the Flood.
• John-117 is unable to prevent the Index from leaving High Charity with Tartarus. Instead, on the advice of Cortana, the Spartan stows away aboard the Forerunner Dreadnought that is carrying the High Prophet of Truth to Earth. Cortana remains behind to ensure the destruction of Installation 05, should that become necessary.
• Cortana sends a slipspace message to Earth informing them that John-117 is en route.
• The Arbiter reaches Installation 05's Control Room but is unable to prevent Tartarus from activating the ring. With the help of humans and the Sangheili, the Arbiter kills Tartarus. This allows Commander Keyes to physically remove the Index from the Core, temporarily interrupting the firing sequence. Due to the interruption, Installation 05 automatically sends a signal to all other Forerunner installations in the galaxy, activating and placing them in standby mode.
• The UNSC Dusk arrives at Delta Halo and witnesses the final stages of the Battle of Installation 05. She retreats to Earth via an anomalous slipspace wake caused by the Forerunner ship.
• Dr. Halsey and Kelly-087 arrive at Onyx and are trapped along with the rest of the human survivors. Halsey sends a distress signal piggybacked on Cortana's October 28 signal.
• The Battle of Havana is fought. William-043, Linda-058, and Frederic-104 manage to stall the Covenant's forces in Havana, Cuba by destroying the Centennial Orbital Elevator. They receive new orders from Dr. Halsey to redeploy from Earth to Onyx, capture the Covenant destroyer Bloodied Spirit, and depart for Onyx.
• Voro 'Mantakree is promoted to Fleet Master by Imperial Admiral Xytan 'Jar Wattinree, and is given the mission to intercept the Spartans heading for Onyx and to retrieve the Forerunner technologies said to be there.
• Danforth Whitcomb's NOVA bomb detonates on board the Covenant supercarrier Sublime Transcendence, in orbit above the Sangheili outpost world Joyous Exultation, destroying every ship in the vicinity, and also scorching a quarter of Joyous Exultation and completely vaporizing the nearby moon Malhiem.
• The Dusk arrives at Earth after mere hours. Upon arrival, she is reassigned to Battle Group Omicron. The group jump to Onyx via the Bloodied Spirit' slipspace wake.
• Blue Team arrives at Onyx aboard the captured Bloodied Spirit, and links up with Kurt-051, Kelly-087, Dr. Halsey, Chief Mendez, and the SPARTAN-III's. They proceed to push forward into Zone 67, retreating further underground when a newly arrived Covenant fleet begins landing troops.
• Admiral Patterson's battle group arrives at Onyx to retrieve the survivors, but is unsuccessful due to the Covenant presence. The UNSC battlegroup is destroyed, with the exception of the Dusk, which avoids destruction by remaining stealthed.
• After an emergency mission redirect by the ONI AI Endless Summer, Kurt-051 and his forces proceed to destroy the Sentinel factory in Onyx's polar region and retrieve Team Katana, enclosed within slipspace field pods.
• Onyx is found to be an artificial structure built by the Forerunners to house a shield world. The human survivors hold off pursuing Covenant troops long enough to flee to the safety of the shield world.
• Kurt promotes Frederic-104 to Lieutenant, Junior Grade.
• Kurt-051 dies after detonating 2 FENRIS warheads inside Onyx's core room antechamber.
• The Onyx Conflict ends. Sentinels annihilate the remaining Covenant forces as Onyx's artificial landmass disintegrates.
• Chol Von, a T'vaoan shipmistress, renamed her missionary ship Joyous Discovery as Paragon at some point of the Great Schism. During the Schism, she captured a Phantom, killing two Sangheili in the process.

November 4

• In an effort to contain the Flood outbreak, Thel 'Vadam's Covenant faction begins glassing Installation 05's surface and proceed to destroy any ships leaving the ring.
• Cortana is deposited into High Charity's distributed network.

November 7

• A Catalog unit, having been dormant for 100,000 years after the firing of the Halo Array, resumes its duties after receiving and denying a control authorization supposedly sent by the Librarian.

November 8

• The Prophet of Truth arrives in the Sol system aboard the Forerunner Dreadnought, and proceeds on course towards Earth at near-relativistic speeds. However, due to John-117's presence aboard the vessel the ship's crew becomes preoccupied with finding and eliminating the Spartan.

November 8 through November 15

• Sergeant Major Johnson and Commander Keyes arrive back at Earth from Installation 05.

November 8 through November 17

• The Battle of Mare Erythraeum takes place on Mars. Following the battle, Colonel James Ackerson, commander of the UNSC forces on Mare Erythraeum, is taken hostage and interrogated by the Jiralhanae Commander Lepidus on board the Covenant cruiser Triumphant Declaration, who tells them of a Forerunner device linked to the Halo Array known as the Key of Osanalan, and that it can be found in Cleveland, Ohio. In reality, the Key of Osanalan is made up as a ploy by James Ackerson to prevent Cleveland from being glassed as part of the battle on Earth in a bid to save the life of his brother, Ruwan, who lives there.
• Battle of Cleveland: Covenant forces, looking for the Key of Osanalan, invade the city of Cleveland. After Ruwan learns the reason the Covenant are invading, he devises a plan with Sergeant Twyker.

November 10

• The URNA Southwest Campaign begins as Covenant forces start to excavate and occupy built-up positions centered around Free-fire Area OZONE in Arizona, URNA.

November 15

• 1649 hours: Sergeant Major Johnson gets clearance from Lord Hood to question Vergil about the artifact the High Prophet of Truth is digging up near Voi. Captain Dare participates in the interrogation.
• 1725 hours: AI Barca generates the interrogation into a report for Lord Hood.

November 17

John-117 and the Forerunner Dreadnought entering Earth's atmosphere.

• Believing the Spartan to be dead, the Prophet of Truth orders the crew of the Forerunner Dreadnought to jump further in-system and enter Earth's atmosphere.
• The Dreadnought arrives at Earth, and John-117 makes contact with Lord Hood aboard the Cairo. Shortly after, the Spartan is ordered to find a way off the ship to avoid being caught in the impending destruction of a nearby Covenant cruiser, Harbinger of Piety.
• Injected with an organic tracking material, Ruwan, claiming to the Covenant that he himself is the Key, is taken aboard the cruiser Harbinger of Piety, where the Minister of Inquisition vows to spare Earth in exchange for Ruwan's knowledge. Nassau Station then uses its Magnetic Accelerator Cannon to obliterate the Piety and everyone on board.
• John-117 proceeds to eject from the ship, using a hatch as a heat shield upon re-entry. Meanwhile, Battle of Sector Six takes place at Sector Six. There, numerous Marines of the 2nd ODST Battalion track John-117's descent. John-117 eventually lands in the Tanzanian jungle near Mount Kilimanjaro, going unconscious for hours.
• The Prophet of Truth's Dreadnought lands in the middle of the Portal near Voi, Kenya. During the last few weeks, Truth's fleet have almost entirely uncovered the Portal and occupied the entire region surrounding it.
• After the Key of Osanalan is revealed to be a ruse, Lepidus executes Ackerson aboard Triumphant Declaration.
• UNSC forces recover John-117 from a jungle near Mount Kilimanjaro. In the underground facility of Crow's Nest, a plan is formulated to launch an aerial strike on Covenant anti-air defenses in the town of Voi in order to prevent the Prophet of Truth from activating the Forerunner artifact. After repelling a Covenant assault on Crow's Nest and destroying the base in the process, a UNSC strike force led by John-117 retakes the Covenant-held Tsavo Highway.
• Battle of Voi: John-117 and a Marine strike force enter Voi and gradually push back the city's Covenant occupiers, destroying the Covenant anti-air defenses in the city. An aerial strike force consisting of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn and at least six other frigates as well as numerous Longsword fighters assaults the Forerunner Dreadnought resting over the Portal artifact, but are unsuccessful in damaging the ship. Truth activates the portal and retreats through it to Installation 00 along with his forces. At the same moment, a Flood-controlled ship slips in, crashing in Voi.
• Covenant battlenet cohesion breaks down after Truth's departure, allowing UNSC forces in the southwest URNA to begin a major counteroffensive as part of their ongoing campaign.

The Ark portal on Earth activates.

• UNSC forces make their way toward the crashed ship in order to overload its reactors and contain the Flood outbreak, just as the Sangheili Fleet of Retribution arrives and drops in reinforcements. After recovering a message by Cortana from the Flood ship, John-117 and the remaining human and Sangheili forces retreat from Voi, as the Fleet of Retribution glasses the city and its surroundings in order to contain the Flood.
• UNSC and Sangheili leaders gather aboard the Sangheili assault carrier Shadow of Intent to hear Cortana's message, which reveals there is a way to stop the Flood on the other side of the Portal. Despite Lord Hood's argument to stay and defend Earth from an encroaching now-Flood-infested High Charity, Commander Keyes, along with the Master Chief and the Sangheili, enter the Portal with the Fleet of Retribution and the Dawn, leaving Hood behind to coordinate Earth's remaining defenses.

November 18

• 1545 hours: High Charity arrives at Mars and makes a slipspace jump to the lesser Ark.

November 19

• 0630 hours: At Free-fire Area OZONE in Arizona, UNSC flagword LUX is declared and a UEG emergency evacuation broadcast is initiated.
• 0700 hours: The UNSC uses nuclear weapons against multiple shielded Covenant positions.

December

A battle rages above Installation 00.

December 3

• Admiral Joseph Harper initiates Operation: MARSH FLASH in Arizona, eliminating clusters of high-ranking Jiralhanae leadership attempting to activate an artifact at Free-fire Area OZONE, effectively bringing a close to the URNA Southwest Campaign.

December 11

• The Battle of Installation 00: The joint Sangheili-human force arrives at Installation 00 and immediately engages Truth's forces while the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn deploys ground forces to locate Truth. Despite being outnumbered three to one in space, the separatist fleet makes short work of the Covenant space forces. After locating Truth via the Cartographer, the separatist-UNSC alliance launches an assault on the Ark's Citadel where Truth intends to activate the Halo Array. At the same time the former Covenant city ship High Charity arrives from slipspace and crashes on the Ark. Debris spread from the city-ship helps spread a new Flood infestation on the Ark. The Sangheili and UNSC finish off the last stand of the Covenant's resistance, consisting of two Scarabs and many other ground forces, in a large battle before the Citadel.

The death of Truth and the Covenant's end.

• Miranda Keyes is killed when she attempts to rescue Johnson from Truth inside of the Citadel. With Truth moments away from activating the Halo array, John-117 and the Arbiter temporarily ally themselves with the Flood and storm the Citadel. They shut down the Halo array, and the Arbiter executes Truth, finally ending the Human-Covenant War.
• The Human-Covenant War ends.
• The Flood immediately turn against John-117 and 'Vadam, but the pair escape. Soon after, it is discovered that the Ark's foundry has created a replacement for the destroyed Installation 04. Realizing that the ring could be used to fire a tactical pulse which would eliminate the Flood infestation, John-117 decides to light it. In order to do so, he enters the ruins of High Charity and recovers Cortana, who still possesses the Activation Index from the original Installation 04. High Charity is destroyed in the process.
• With the Index secure, John-117, Cortana, the Arbiter, and Sergeant Major Johnson travel to the replacement Installation 04, while the rest of the UNSC and Sangheili forces return to Earth on the Shadow of Intent. In the control room, Johnson is killed as 343 Guilty Spark attempts to prevent him from activating the ring prematurely, as doing so would destroy the ring. John-117 destroys the monitor and begins the firing sequence for the Halo ring. John-117 and the Arbiter then escape the control room by taking Johnson's Warthog to the UNSC Frigate Forward Unto Dawn, which is holding position nearby.
• Due to the unstable, incomplete nature of the ring as it fires, the slipspace portal collapses as the Dawn enters it, causing it to be sheared in two. The Halo ring explodes causing heavy damage to the Ark, rending both defunct. Cortana and John-117 are in the hangar area at the time of the Frigate's separation, and are thus left in the aft section of the ship, which falls out of Slipstream space at an unknown location, eventually drifting towards a Forerunner shield world, Requiem.

December 14

• 000 Tragic Solitude orders his sentinels to begin the construction of a containment shield around the remains of High Charity for quarantine.

December 15

• John-117 has an augmentation maintenance scheduled for this date.

December 23

• Arbiter Thel 'Vadam returns to Earth using the forward half of the Dawn, crashing into the Indian Ocean.

December 30

• The Shadow of Intent is repaired and refitted at a mobile shipyard.

December 31

• Codename: SURGEON filed a report to Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS entitled "Historical/Psychological Analysis of Cole, Preston J." The report was filed from UNSC Point of No Return in synchronous orbit on the far side of Luna.

Unknown date

• Unaware of the Human-Covenant War's conclusion not long earlier, the Spartan-II Gray Team destroy the Sangheili colony of Glyke with a NOVA bomb according to Operation: SUNSPEAR's Condition Endgame.

Battles

Human-Covenant War

• Battle of Beta Eridani
• Operation: FIRESIDE
• Battle of Fumirole
• Massacre of Troy
• Battle of Sigma Octanus IV
• Fall of Reach (Engagements)
• Battle of Tribute
• Raid on Verge
• Battle of Beta Gabriel
• Battle of Line Installation 1-4
• Battle of New Jerusalem
• Raid on Mount Haven
• Battle of Installation 04 (Engagements)
• Massacre at Eridanus Secundus
• Operation: FIRST STRIKE
• Battle of Earth (Engagements)
• Battle of Installation 05 (Engagements)
• Onyx Conflict
• Battle of Mare Erythraeum
• Scramble onboard Forerunner Dreadnought
• Battle of Installation 00 (Engagements)
• Operation: SUNSPEAR

The Great Schism

• Fall of High Charity

Other/Unknown

• Battle of October 10
• Battle of the Gas Mine

Trivia

• All five Halo games developed by Bungie take place in the latter half of this year.
• The numerical value of the year is one of Bungie's many references to the number seven. Specifically, adding the numerals results in 14, which has twice the value of 7. Adding the two halves of the year separately (2+5 and 5+2) results in a pair of sevens.