Halo Reach

Backstory: (In the 26th century, most of humanity is ruled by the Unified Earth Government (UEG). As most of the material from the Halo universe is from the ongoing war, we see the future mainly through the eyes of the UEG's military arm, the United Nations Space Command (UNSC). During the events, the UNSC fought the Covenant over Earth in a last-ditch attempt to protect the human race. The events followed when the UNSC fought defending the planet Reach, the UNSC's former military headquarters. The UNSC was formed by the United Nations when overpopulation on Earth and conflict in the Sol System started becoming a severe problem in the early 22nd century. In the wake of the Interplanetary War in the 2160s, the UNSC became the military and space exploratory arm of the newly established Unified Earth Government. After the emergence of the Covenant threat, the UNSC was given power over the UEG and its colonial governing agency, Colonial Administration Authority, although the civilian government was formally returned its power after the war. Run by HIGHCOM, the UNSC is Earth's premiere defense against external threats. The UNSC Navy houses the divisions of Marines - including the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers - the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and the fleet. The United Nations Space Command armed forces include the UNSC Army, the UNSC Air Force, and Spartan Operations, along with the Navy and Marines. Originally designed to keep the peace between neighboring planets and star systems, when certain rebellious factions began to present a problem in the late 2490s, the UNSC was forced to police its colonies to keep privateers and pirates from raiding them.) + (The Swords of Sanghelios is a splinter faction of the Covenant formed by the Arbiter Thel 'Vadam and Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, based upon an ancient Sangheili order. Formed from the initial alliance out of desperation with their former human enemies, the UNSC, they played a key role in ensuring the salvation of the galaxy and start a new era of relative peace alongside the UNSC. Facing civil war after the end of the Human-Covenant War, the Swords became a major faction within the galaxy's political and military state. Alongside the UNSC they shared the Joint Occupation Zones, research and monitoring stations on the Halo rings as well as MJOLNIR armor. Much of the Swords' trouble came from the Servants of the Abiding Truth and Jul 'Mdama's emerging Covenant faction, both directly and indirectly caused by the Office of Naval Intelligence which sought the destabilization of the Sangheili race. Ruled by a large council of kaidons, the Swords of Sanghelios attempt to bring peace and unity to Sanghelios, the Elite homeworld, as well as returning the old values and traditions of Sangheili past. With their UNSC allies, they are succeeding in creating a new era of peace.) + (Originally formed by as an alliance between two species; the Prophets - San'Shyuum - and the Elites - Sangheil - the Covenant was a theocratic hegemony of multiple alien species. The name "Covenant" is based on the binding Covenant formed between the two races, when the Sangheili promised to defend the San'Shyuum as they searched for the "Sacred Rings" - Halo Array - which are said to start the "Great Journey", a term that the Prophets use to explain the disappearance of their Gods, the Forerunner race. The quest of the entire Covenant, the Great Journey is the basis of all of their worship. As the Covenant Empire grew over a millennium, more species were enslaved to their cause, although, up until the Great Schism, none of them were quite as important to the Prophets as the Elites. At first, the Covenant were mostly held together by a need to survive, but as their society advanced, so did their technology, culture and religion. Now the polytheistic Covenant control a large part of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and their society is a complicated caste system, with the Prophets still on top, governing the Covenant along with the Elites. The Covenant is a theocracy, based on a prophecy about the Sacred Rings and the Great Journey. The actual context of this prophecy is based on the notion that the Forerunners were so advanced that they had found a way to propel themselves to godlike status using their technology. To oppose this, a parasitic race known as the Flood attacked the Forerunners and attempted to stop the activation of this technology. Before the Flood could stop them, the Forerunners activated the Halo Array and ascended to godhood. The Covenant design is to find the Halos and use it to propel themselves to godliness as well. The three leading Prophets Truth, Mercy, and Regret who were the Hierarchs of the Covenant, wanted to destroy humanity due to the threat they pose to their religion: if humankind really are the Forerunners' heirs, then all that the Covenant believe in is false. Not wanting the truth about the humans to get out, the rest of the Covenant have been told that humanity is a direct affront to the Forerunner, much like the Flood in goal, so must be exterminated if the Great Journey is to be completed.) + (The Flood - called The Parasite by the Covenant - is a species of virulent, parasitic organisms that thrive by consuming other sentient life of sufficient biomass, no matter where in the universe, thus leading Forerunners to the creation of the Halo Array. The Flood appears to be a hive or communal mind, existing in several stages that eventually lead into the creation of a central intelligence known as the Gravemind. The Flood grow and reproduce via the assimilation of other beings, utilizing corpses and acquiring any biomass - including both animal and plant - in order to spread. They are incapable of sexual reproduction, instead they fester inside a host until a certain time period, after which they explode, and many new Flood are given off. Once a Gravemind is formed however, the Flood advance to a stage where they no longer require hosts for this, only biomass and calcium, which they require to feed on, and to build bodies with. Once they have advanced, they create hives which can produce thousands of Flood inside large pustules on walls and other surfaces, which act as incubators. During this stage, the Flood are able to build their own life forms using captured biomass and calcium deposits. The Flood continue in this fashion recurrently until either everything is devoured, or until they are stopped, the former usually occurring. In modern times, little is known about their origin, except that they arrived from another galaxy and fought both prehistoric humans and Forerunners, eventually defeating the latter. The Forerunners discovered and then fought them until they were overwhelmed after centuries of war. Faced with the Flood spreading throughout the galaxy and consuming every sentient being, the Forerunners created seven artificial rings called the Halos, galactic superweapons in the shape of enormous rings, to contain and hopefully stop the Flood from ever spreading. The point of the rings was to wipe out all sentient life, thus starving the Flood of the sufficient biomass required for them to continue spreading. Through their own interpretation of Forerunner artifacts, the Covenant believed these rings were actually devices that allowed the Forerunner to transcend this plane of existence into godlike state, and thus they seek to do the same by activating them once more, not realizing they would inadvertently wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy if they were to be successful in doing so. Although it seemed the plan had been successful at eliminating the Flood threat, samples of the organism kept on the rings for study were released on at least two of the installations through accidental means, putting the galaxy once again at risk of complete destruction by the parasite.) + (Once the dominant civilization in the Milky Way, the Forerunners reached unparalleled technological advancement over 100,000 years before the Human-Covenant War. Believing to be charged by the mysterious Precursors with protecting less advanced civilizations in the galaxy, they stumbled upon the Flood and fought a three-hundred-year long war to stop the genocidal parasitic species from overrunning the galaxy. When it looked as if they were going to fail at that task, they built and activated the Halo Array - sterilizing the entire galaxy of sentient life including themselves, starving the Flood into submission, and repopulating the galaxy again with those few species saved from extinction. All that remains now of the Forerunners are the ruins of their ancient temples and cities, a few scattered pieces of functional technology, and their automated combat and maintenance constructs. Their technological brilliance, combined with a garbled version of the Halo activation, led to the Covenant's religion revering the Forerunners as deities, and that this state could be achieved again by activating the Halos. In turn, these attempts led to the Human-Covenant War, and the eventual secession of the Sangheili and their alliance with humanity to stop the Covenant.) + (The Insurrectionists are various rebel groups opposed to the rule of the UNSC throughout human space who seek the colonies' liberation from the Unified Earth Government's influence. Following the rapid volumetric growth of the region of space controlled by the human race throughout the 25th century, the UEG found it increasingly difficult to maintain its hold over the Outer Colonies, hundreds of which were scattered across exceedingly large swathes of space. By 2490, the Outer Colonies surpassed the core worlds in number by several hundred. Despite their more discrete composition, the Outer Colonies proved an ample breeding ground for a strong nationalist sentiment among their citizens which in turn led to their perceiving the Earth government—and the UNSC which imposed its will—as a draconian outside force. In 2513, the UNSC initiated Operation: TREBUCHET, one of the largest operations in UNSC history; spanning ten years and costing hundreds of thousands of lives, the goal was to root out the Insurrectionists and impose order in the Outer Colonies. Following the Covenant attack on Harvest and the onset of the Human-Covenant War in 2525, Operation: TREBUCHET was put on halt by the UNSC. Insurrectionist activity as a whole, while not completely gone, died down during the Covenant War. After the end of the Human-Covenant conflict, many insurrectionist movements such as the United Rebel Front which had ceased their operations during the war began to resurface. A number of colonies refused the offer of peace and cut all ties with the UNSC, which, according to them, had abandoned them during the war. Of major significance in the post-war era was the rise of the New Colonial Alliance, founded by rogue UNSC Admiral Mattius Drake, which in early 2553 attempted to hijack the newly commissioned UNSC Infinity.)