The Story Behind Halo.
The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but overpopulation has forced many
of her former residents to colonize other worlds. Faster-than-light travel is
now a reality, and Earth's unified government, through the United Nations Space
Command, has put its full weight behind the colonization effort; millions of
humans now live on habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone in
humanity's colonization efforts is the planet Reach, an interstellar naval yard
that builds colony ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC's armed
forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach is also a hub of scientific and
military activity.
Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony Harvest was lost. A
battlegroup sent to investigate was almost completely destroyed; only one badly
damaged ship returned to Reach. Its crew told of a seemingly unstopable alien
warship that had effortlessly annihilated their forces.
This was humankind's first encounter with a group of aliens they eventually
came to know as the Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their
fanatical religious devotion. Covenant religious elders declared humanity an
affront to the gods, and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war upon
humanity with gruesome diligence.
After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated colonies, UNSC Admiral
Preston Cole established the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead
the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw, ships must avoid Earth-bound
vectors-even if that means jumping without proper navigational calculations.
Vessels in danger of capture must self-destruct.
On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg super-soldiers takes on
newfound importance. The soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project rack up an
impressive record against the Covenant in test deployments, but there are too
few of them to turn the tide of the war.
Existing SPARTAN-II soldiers are recalled to Reach for further augmentation.
The plan: board a Covenant vessel with the improved SPARTAN-IIs and learn the
location of the Covenant home world. Two days before the mission begins,
Covenant forces strike Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant are now on
Earth's doorstep. One ship, the Pillar of Autumn, escapes with the last
SPARTAN-II and makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead the Covenant
away from Earth.
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