The Spirit[1], otherwise known as the DX-class Dropship, is a Covenant troop dropship in Halo 1. They are angular, tuning fork shaped craft with personnel bays along the exterior of each "prong". They were used by the Covenant up until they were replaced by Phantom dropships around the time of The First Battle of Earth. They are used to transport Elites, Jackals, and Grunts.
Between the extended personnel bays, an energy field fluctuates visibly as it generates the ship's antigravity propulsion (similar in appearance to the energy pulse of the "Gravity Lift" elevators the Covenant use to commute between the ground and the hovering ships). This same gravity-beam is used to ferry Ghosts and light ground vehicles to their destinations. In addition to the pilot, the ship is crewed by a single gunner for the underslung bubble-shaped plasma gun turret--similar to the Shade but with a higher rate of fire. Each troop bay can hold four fully equipped Covenant warriors.
While these dropships also have life support for use in vacuum, they do not have a Slipspace drive. In Halo: First Strike, a Spirit was modified so it could be launched out of a ship already in Slipspace. Even with this modification, the Spirit could not travel into Slipspace of its own accord.
Known Spirits
Behind the Scenes
- The Spirit did not get an official name until Halo: Ghosts of Onyx was released in October 2006. Up until that point, the ship was simply referred to as the "Covenant dropship." Other sources unofficially referred to it as the "Apparition," the "Harbinger," and even the "Bandit," based on the military term for an enemy used by a Marine to refer to a Spirit in Halo (Level).[2]