United Nations Space Command Halo

The United Nations Space Command, more commonly known as the UNSC, is the military, exploratory, and scientific agency of the Unified Earth Government.

History

Formation

UN clashes with dissident political movements, the most important of which were the "Koslovics" and the "Frieden," began the crisis that led to the formation of the UNSC. The Frieden movement was a fascist organization based on the Jovian Moons, a group that received backing from some corporations operating in the Federal Republic of Germany on Earth. Their ideological opponents, the Koslovics, formed a Marxist–Leninist group centered around the leadership of Vladimir Koslov around the same time.

The UNSC was commissioned in 2163 as a military force primarily composed of Naval and Marine forces. In July 2164, the UNSC partook in its first battle. From this point, the UNSC was used by the UN in conflicts, including the Interplanetary War.

Colonization

With the conflicts of Sol over, a newly powerful Unified Earth Government and UNSC began to expand into the stars. At about 2490, the planet of Reach would become extremely important to the UNSC. It would become a major naval yard and training center.

The apex of human expansion would come in 2490, when more than 800 worlds were considered part of the UEG's territory, many developing into full-fledged colonies. By this time, a ring of Outer colonies was providing the UEG with the raw materials that made the macro-economy function; with the political power remaining with the Inner colonies. The massive difference in wealth distribution and political power, which became a hallmark of humanity by this period, led to new threats of secession from the outer ring.

Winds of Insurrection

In 2492, the colony of Far Isle was razed by nuclear weapons after a massive  uprising,creating a new found reason to rebel. The Callisto Incident in 2494 would begin a bloody struggle against groups of terrorists (or freedom fighters), who wanted independence. The UNSC battled them for nearly three decades. As the situation deteriorated, the UNSC created the SPARTAN-II Program, which was headed by one Catherine Halsey.

The Human-Covenant War

In 2525 a CMA battlegroup had been decimated. Upon investigation from the only surviving ship, the CMA Heracles it had been discovered that humanity was not alone. The planet the battlegroup was at, Harvest, was completely destroyed. The UNSC was placed on high alert. On November 1st, the UNSC stripped away the Colonial Military Administration and gave its forces to NAVCOM and UNICOM.

Decades of War

The beginning phase of the war was marked by disastrous defeats, and even more costly victories. Aside from the Second Battle of Harvest in 2526, where a large force led by Vice Admiral Preston Cole barely defeated a smaller Covenant fleet, the UNSC's influence on their territories quickly dwindled in the course of their struggle. In the span of a few years, the Covenant had managed to capture and destroy the majority, if not all of the Outer Colonies, and a small portion of the Inner colonies.

The dire circumstances of the Covenant conflict allowed the UNSC to override civilian rule and establish itself as humanity's primary government. Although the Unified Earth Government was more open to step down, the CAA, the arm of the UEG ruling over the colonies, resisted the UNSC's rise to power, and was thus stripped of its power. By the middle to late stages of the war, the government of humanity could be more accurately described as an, "emergency military" government.

The Final Year

By 2552, the UNSC, though heavily outnumbered and outgunned, had nonetheless slowed the Covenant's inexorable progress through human space. However, the overall situation remained dire. In desperation, HIGHCOM ordered a high-risk operation. Spartan-II super soldiers were to insert into Covenant space, with a captured Covenant vessel, capture a high-ranking Prophet, and return to UNSC space in an attempt to ransom their own leader for a truce. Before the operation began, the Covenant found and destroyed the fortress world Reach, killing a large portion of the UNSCDF, and rendering most of the Spartans that were to execute the mission KIA or MIA. The Covenant endured heavy losses, both in space and on the planet's surface. However, the largest and most important military world protecting the Sol system had fallen silent. Little hope of continued, successful resistance remained.

A single ship, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn managed to escape the planet, with two Spartans on board, Linda-058, who presumably went MIA in the Fall of Reach, and John-117. The ship followed coordinates derived by the A.I. Cortana led to a ringworld known as Halo. It was there the Spartan encountered a parasitic lifeform known as the Flood, a species so dangerous that weapons of mass destruction were built on a galactic scale to combat them: the Halo Array. The only limit to Flood expansion proved to be their food supply, sentient lifeforms. The ringworld was one of seven such weapons, designed with a single purpose: to kill all sentient life within three radii of the galactic center, scouring the Flood and any biomass capable of supporting them. Having discovered the truth from the Installation's Artificial Intelligence, 343 Guilty Spark, John-117 destroyed the Flood, Halo, and a large Covenant fleet by detonating the reactor of the Pillar of Autumn.

By October 2552, the Covenant had found the position of the human home world, Earth, and sent a preliminary task force there. Believing it to be the location of the Ark, an ancient Forerunner relic, the Covenant brought only a small fleet of warships. They encountered staunch resistance, and were initially fended off. A brief reprieve came from the political and religious crisis that wracked the Covenant in the wake of a UNSC operation to assassinate the Prophet of Regret, and following secession of the Sangheili from the Empire's hegemony. These events, combined with the fortuitous Flood infection of the Covenant homeworld of High Charity, would shatter the Empire's political unity. Nevertheless, by November, the remaining Covenant Loyalists had subjugated large parts of Africa, devastating much of the planet. By this time, the UNSC sent out draft notices. The UNSC Homefleet and Orbital Defense Platforms fought with stunning ferocity, but in the end only a handful of ships survived the Loyalist onslaught. However, the surviving Covenant were obsessed with the completion of the Great Journey, the culmination of their religious beliefs, by activating the Forerunner portal in Africa. The resistance effort led by Lord Hood, Miranda Keyes, John-117 and the allied Fleet of Retribution was able to prevent the utter destruction of Earth, but only by the slimmest of margins.

The UNSC and Covenant Separatist forces launched a joint operation to destroy the Covenant Loyalists once and for all at the Forerunner command and control installation: the Ark. After stopping the planetoid from firing the Halo array, the alliance succeeded in killing the Covenant's last remaining leader, the Prophet of Truth. Despite being outnumbered 3:1 in orbit, and even more so on the ground, the allies destroyed the bulk of the Loyalists' remaining forces.

On March 3, 2553, the Human-Covenant war officially ended in victory for the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists, but at a staggering price. An estimated twenty-three billion human civilians and military personnel were killed between 2525 and 2553. Most of the UNSC's major military outposts were destroyed, with the exception of Earth which sustained heavy damage. With the defeat of the Covenant though, the UNSC now had a second chance to rebuild, and thrive.

Reconstruction

Following the inauguration of Dr. Ruth Charet in January 2553, the UNSC handed back its emergency powers to the UEG on January 8 of that year. The UNSC also maintained its earlier truce with the members of the Covenant Separatists initiated by Lord Hood and the Arbiter. Nevertheless, a black-ops team from the Office of Naval Intelligence that had been supplying arms to a Sangheili faction, one ideologically opposed to the Arbiter, to destabilize their government rendering them incapable of threatening Earth.

The end of the war also returned brought colonial politics back into focus. Many colonies sought to work with the UNSC to help safeguard their homes. However, a number of worlds turned openly hostile to the UNSC and sought to distance themselves from the UNSC and UEG. Despite this, the UNSC didn't actively respond to most of this. Only if these worlds attempted to violently secede did the UNSC get involved.

As of 2558, Jul 'Mdama's Covenant was actively opposed against the UNSC. The threat would be finally be contained after Jul 'Mdama's assassination at Kamchatka and a final battle at Sunaion. Though this would be overshadowed by the sudden onslaught of the Created, near the end of the year.

By 2589, the former human stronghold of Reach had been restored and resettled by the UNSC.