Halo Installments
![Picture](/uploads/8/2/7/0/8270409/807577.jpg)
The Halo Array, Halos, alternatively known as the Sacred Ringsby the Covenant, Fortress Worlds by their creators, and Installations by the AI Monitors that run them, are seven massive ring-shaped installations constructed by the Forerunners throughout the galaxy over one hundred thousand years ago as a last resort when combating the parasite known as the Flood (Originally there were twelve) When nothing else could be done, they activated the rings which killed all sentient life forms within three radii of the galactic center. Not only are they weapons of last resort, but the Halo installations are also research facilities, mainly for the study of the Flood.
Background Information The Halo Array is a network of seven ring-shaped artificial worlds created by the Forerunners in order to kill all sentient life within range of the array, virtually the entire galaxy. Rather than a weapon of war, these were used as a last resort against the Flood, a parasitic extra-galactic species that threatened to infest every sentient lifeform in the galaxy. By activating the rings, the Forerunners denied the Flood access to these lifeforms, effectively starving the species to virtual extinction, though it clung to life in a number of Forerunner facilities, including some Halo installations. The two known Halo installations, referred to as Alpha Halo and Delta Halo respectively, orbit gas giants, though it is not known whether this is the case of all the Halos, and Alpha Halo maintained an atmospheric mining facility until it was destroyed by the Covenant. Though separated by thousands of light-years, the seven installations are networked together and capable of remote activation at the Ark, an installation outside the galaxy. Each Halo installation has a maximum effective range of 25,000 light-years. The exact means the array uses to conduct this "mass sterilization protocol" are unknown, though it is assumed to utilize energy in some type of form.
The Halo Array in its entirety has been fired once in known history, approximately 100,000 years ago, by the Did act in order to stop the Flood from overwhelming the galaxy. Despite being the network's builders, the Forerunners were killed in this last suicidal attempt to save the rest of the universe from a worse fate. The array has nearly been activated three times since; Alpha Halo was almost activated by the Master Chief before being deactivated by Cortana, while Delta Halo was activated by Commander Miranda Keyes, forced by the Chieftain of the Jiralhanae Tartarus, and Sergeant Johnson was forced by the Prophet of Truth to activate the Ark. None of these attempts were successful. A replacement Halo for the destroyed Alpha Halo was activated outside of the array's range, eliminating the freed Flood, but did not activate the rest of the array.
Looking back to a mere 300 years after the Flood had entered the galaxy, the Forerunner Council granted a Master Builder called Faber permission to begin constructing the Halo Array. Meanwhile, a Lifeworker called the Librarian, began collecting samples from every species across the galaxy; ensuring that if all means of the stopping the Flood failed and the Halos were forced into activation, that the universe could still be reseeded with life. The Lifeworker's husband, the Didact, a Promethean warrior, created Shield Worlds the likes of which the planet Onyx is, to further ensure their survival. At the Array's completion, twelve Halos had been constructed. However, in a sudden cataclysmic event that was mysteriously undertaken by a Metarchy ancilla (a monitor) named Mendicant Bias, only seven Halo rings remained intact and operable; hindering the Array's true might.
Each Halo installation was given a designation number, from 01 to 07, and was overseen by a Monitor. The Monitors are given control of the Installations' Sentinels, Constructors and Enforcers, and are responsible for containing the Flood test subjects in their research facilities and protecting the Halo from intruders.
The Array also encompasses an installation known as the Ark or Installation 00, from which the array can be remotely and safely activated while out of firing range. Inhabitants on the Ark are able to survive the effects. The Forerunners also built active Shield Worlds, Micro Dyso Spheres encased in a slipspace field with their own star in the center and a habitable environment, as a means to escape the effect without having to leave the galaxy.
History of the Rings The Halos were constructed by the Forerunners a few hundred years after the Flood were discovered by the Array's makers, because their builders saw that their current isolation and containment procedures were not adequate to stop the spread of the Flood. Little is known of their extensive history (at least one was functional for 101, 217 local years), but after exhausting every other tactical option, their creators had no choice but to activate the Halos' main weapon, and terminate all sentient life in the galaxy.
The seven Halos then remained relatively dormant for one hundred thousand years (though at least one of them experienced a major Flood outbreak; and reference given to brief visits by other species by 343 Guilty Spark in"Conversations from the Universe") until one of them, Installation 04 (Alpha Halo), was discovered by the theocratic alien superpower, the Covenant. The Covenant, who revered the Forerunner as gods, believed that the Halo's main weapon was actually a source of "Divine Wind" meant to propel them on a path they called the "Great Journey". During their investigations on Installation 04, the Covenant encountered the Flood, however they quickly, but only partially contained the outbreak. After the arrival of the Human vessel UNSC Pillar of Autumn,Captain Jacob Keyes accidentally broke the containment, thinking to find a large Covenant weapons cache. A massive four way melee ensued between the Covenant, Sentinels led by 343 Guilty Spark, the Flood, and the Humans. This finally culminated when the Human supersoldier known as John-117 (Master Chief) detonated the fusion engines of the Pillar of Autumn on the surface of the installation, which compromised the structural integrity of the ring, and, due to the gravitational momentum and inertia still perpetuating the ring in orbit around Threshold, tore the ring apart. The remains of Installation 04 were scattered as debris in space, both large and small. The explosion sent massive chunks of the ring careening into the moon Basis due to the constant bombardment of small objects from the ring as seen in the sky. Other large sections of the ring are seen in the opening scene of Halo 2, drifting in space around Threshold. It is also highly likely that large portions of Alpha Halo debris were drawn into Threshold, never to be seen again.
Later, a second Halo, Installation 05 (Delta Halo), was discovered. On this Halo, the Flood had already been released and much of the Installation had been compromised, including the Installation's monitor, 2401 Penitent Tangent. And owing to this, a similar conflict erupted. This conflict ended in the Flood manifesting a Gravemind and successfully escaping the ring aboard infected Covenant ships. The ring was nearly activated by Tartarus, a Brute Chieftain, but Commander Miranda Keyes pulled the Index out of the Installation at the last moment, causing all six functional Installations to go into "standby mode", ready for remote activation from the Ark. The Humans returned to Earth and resumed their fight against the Covenant, who had uncovered a large structure on Earth, which they assumed to be the Ark. The Covenant set the Forerunner Dreadnought down in the center of the structure, activating it.
To everyone's surprise, the structure was not the Ark, but a generator of a portal to the Installation 00, a massive artificial world located outside the galaxy. Human and Covenant Separatist forces proceeded through the portal to the newly-discovered installation to prevent the Covenant Loyalists from activating the remaining Halo rings remotely. It was then that the Flood leader, the Gravemind, appeared, having turned the Covenant planetoid city High Charity into a Flood hive. The hive crashed onto the installation, releasing the Flood. At this point, it was revealed that the Ark had been constructing a new Installation 04, to replace the one which was destroyed by the Master Chief. This new Installation was only days from being complete. The Humans eventually decided to activate the new ring to stop the Flood, which in turn destroyed itself and damaged the Ark. It is unclear how the system was affected by this, but if the Ark was rendered inoperable, the Halo system will have been irreparably damaged by the destruction of Installation 04 and its Monitor (343 Guilty Spark). There is a conflict with real life history regarding the firing record of the Array. It was insinuated that the Halo Array caused total extinction of all sentient life on Earth and throughout the Milky Way. As of now, there is no fossil record of such a complete extinction event. However, the Ross-Ziegler Blip, a tiny aberration in Earth's fossil records was not discovered until 2332, explaining the disparity.
Functions The Halo Array is complex, but each can be activated individually by a Reclaimer, also activating the other Installations, or they can all be activated simultaneously from Installation 00. In the event of a major Flood outbreak, the Installation's Monitor will seek out a Reclaimer if available, who they will enlist to aid them. It will teleport them to the Installation's Library, and assist the individual in retrieving the Index, needed to activate the Installation. The Monitor then stores the Index within its data arrays for safe transportation, lest the Reclaimer fall prey to the Flood before they can activate the Installation. Once at the Control Room, the Reclaimer must insert the Index into the control panel in order to begin the activation sequence.
The main weapon is amplified by Phase Pulse Generators, three of which are known to be close to the Control Room. Each Installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years , and is apparently of the "highest possible threat assessment from biological contamination and radiological annihilation". The pulse is designed to kill all sentient life in the Installation's three-dimensional radius, with the entire array covering the entire galaxy. The pulse targets the nervous system of sentient life forms via the issuing of a harmonic frequency. The only known way to avoid the effects of these pulses is to escape to a Shield World, located in slip-space and therefore immune from its effects, or to escape to Installation 00, which is out of range. Once activated, the other installations will fire simultaneously, eradicating all sentient life in the galaxy, thus starving and killing the Flood.
Background Information The Halo Array is a network of seven ring-shaped artificial worlds created by the Forerunners in order to kill all sentient life within range of the array, virtually the entire galaxy. Rather than a weapon of war, these were used as a last resort against the Flood, a parasitic extra-galactic species that threatened to infest every sentient lifeform in the galaxy. By activating the rings, the Forerunners denied the Flood access to these lifeforms, effectively starving the species to virtual extinction, though it clung to life in a number of Forerunner facilities, including some Halo installations. The two known Halo installations, referred to as Alpha Halo and Delta Halo respectively, orbit gas giants, though it is not known whether this is the case of all the Halos, and Alpha Halo maintained an atmospheric mining facility until it was destroyed by the Covenant. Though separated by thousands of light-years, the seven installations are networked together and capable of remote activation at the Ark, an installation outside the galaxy. Each Halo installation has a maximum effective range of 25,000 light-years. The exact means the array uses to conduct this "mass sterilization protocol" are unknown, though it is assumed to utilize energy in some type of form.
The Halo Array in its entirety has been fired once in known history, approximately 100,000 years ago, by the Did act in order to stop the Flood from overwhelming the galaxy. Despite being the network's builders, the Forerunners were killed in this last suicidal attempt to save the rest of the universe from a worse fate. The array has nearly been activated three times since; Alpha Halo was almost activated by the Master Chief before being deactivated by Cortana, while Delta Halo was activated by Commander Miranda Keyes, forced by the Chieftain of the Jiralhanae Tartarus, and Sergeant Johnson was forced by the Prophet of Truth to activate the Ark. None of these attempts were successful. A replacement Halo for the destroyed Alpha Halo was activated outside of the array's range, eliminating the freed Flood, but did not activate the rest of the array.
Looking back to a mere 300 years after the Flood had entered the galaxy, the Forerunner Council granted a Master Builder called Faber permission to begin constructing the Halo Array. Meanwhile, a Lifeworker called the Librarian, began collecting samples from every species across the galaxy; ensuring that if all means of the stopping the Flood failed and the Halos were forced into activation, that the universe could still be reseeded with life. The Lifeworker's husband, the Didact, a Promethean warrior, created Shield Worlds the likes of which the planet Onyx is, to further ensure their survival. At the Array's completion, twelve Halos had been constructed. However, in a sudden cataclysmic event that was mysteriously undertaken by a Metarchy ancilla (a monitor) named Mendicant Bias, only seven Halo rings remained intact and operable; hindering the Array's true might.
Each Halo installation was given a designation number, from 01 to 07, and was overseen by a Monitor. The Monitors are given control of the Installations' Sentinels, Constructors and Enforcers, and are responsible for containing the Flood test subjects in their research facilities and protecting the Halo from intruders.
The Array also encompasses an installation known as the Ark or Installation 00, from which the array can be remotely and safely activated while out of firing range. Inhabitants on the Ark are able to survive the effects. The Forerunners also built active Shield Worlds, Micro Dyso Spheres encased in a slipspace field with their own star in the center and a habitable environment, as a means to escape the effect without having to leave the galaxy.
History of the Rings The Halos were constructed by the Forerunners a few hundred years after the Flood were discovered by the Array's makers, because their builders saw that their current isolation and containment procedures were not adequate to stop the spread of the Flood. Little is known of their extensive history (at least one was functional for 101, 217 local years), but after exhausting every other tactical option, their creators had no choice but to activate the Halos' main weapon, and terminate all sentient life in the galaxy.
The seven Halos then remained relatively dormant for one hundred thousand years (though at least one of them experienced a major Flood outbreak; and reference given to brief visits by other species by 343 Guilty Spark in"Conversations from the Universe") until one of them, Installation 04 (Alpha Halo), was discovered by the theocratic alien superpower, the Covenant. The Covenant, who revered the Forerunner as gods, believed that the Halo's main weapon was actually a source of "Divine Wind" meant to propel them on a path they called the "Great Journey". During their investigations on Installation 04, the Covenant encountered the Flood, however they quickly, but only partially contained the outbreak. After the arrival of the Human vessel UNSC Pillar of Autumn,Captain Jacob Keyes accidentally broke the containment, thinking to find a large Covenant weapons cache. A massive four way melee ensued between the Covenant, Sentinels led by 343 Guilty Spark, the Flood, and the Humans. This finally culminated when the Human supersoldier known as John-117 (Master Chief) detonated the fusion engines of the Pillar of Autumn on the surface of the installation, which compromised the structural integrity of the ring, and, due to the gravitational momentum and inertia still perpetuating the ring in orbit around Threshold, tore the ring apart. The remains of Installation 04 were scattered as debris in space, both large and small. The explosion sent massive chunks of the ring careening into the moon Basis due to the constant bombardment of small objects from the ring as seen in the sky. Other large sections of the ring are seen in the opening scene of Halo 2, drifting in space around Threshold. It is also highly likely that large portions of Alpha Halo debris were drawn into Threshold, never to be seen again.
Later, a second Halo, Installation 05 (Delta Halo), was discovered. On this Halo, the Flood had already been released and much of the Installation had been compromised, including the Installation's monitor, 2401 Penitent Tangent. And owing to this, a similar conflict erupted. This conflict ended in the Flood manifesting a Gravemind and successfully escaping the ring aboard infected Covenant ships. The ring was nearly activated by Tartarus, a Brute Chieftain, but Commander Miranda Keyes pulled the Index out of the Installation at the last moment, causing all six functional Installations to go into "standby mode", ready for remote activation from the Ark. The Humans returned to Earth and resumed their fight against the Covenant, who had uncovered a large structure on Earth, which they assumed to be the Ark. The Covenant set the Forerunner Dreadnought down in the center of the structure, activating it.
To everyone's surprise, the structure was not the Ark, but a generator of a portal to the Installation 00, a massive artificial world located outside the galaxy. Human and Covenant Separatist forces proceeded through the portal to the newly-discovered installation to prevent the Covenant Loyalists from activating the remaining Halo rings remotely. It was then that the Flood leader, the Gravemind, appeared, having turned the Covenant planetoid city High Charity into a Flood hive. The hive crashed onto the installation, releasing the Flood. At this point, it was revealed that the Ark had been constructing a new Installation 04, to replace the one which was destroyed by the Master Chief. This new Installation was only days from being complete. The Humans eventually decided to activate the new ring to stop the Flood, which in turn destroyed itself and damaged the Ark. It is unclear how the system was affected by this, but if the Ark was rendered inoperable, the Halo system will have been irreparably damaged by the destruction of Installation 04 and its Monitor (343 Guilty Spark). There is a conflict with real life history regarding the firing record of the Array. It was insinuated that the Halo Array caused total extinction of all sentient life on Earth and throughout the Milky Way. As of now, there is no fossil record of such a complete extinction event. However, the Ross-Ziegler Blip, a tiny aberration in Earth's fossil records was not discovered until 2332, explaining the disparity.
Functions The Halo Array is complex, but each can be activated individually by a Reclaimer, also activating the other Installations, or they can all be activated simultaneously from Installation 00. In the event of a major Flood outbreak, the Installation's Monitor will seek out a Reclaimer if available, who they will enlist to aid them. It will teleport them to the Installation's Library, and assist the individual in retrieving the Index, needed to activate the Installation. The Monitor then stores the Index within its data arrays for safe transportation, lest the Reclaimer fall prey to the Flood before they can activate the Installation. Once at the Control Room, the Reclaimer must insert the Index into the control panel in order to begin the activation sequence.
The main weapon is amplified by Phase Pulse Generators, three of which are known to be close to the Control Room. Each Installation has a maximum effective radius of 25,000 light-years , and is apparently of the "highest possible threat assessment from biological contamination and radiological annihilation". The pulse is designed to kill all sentient life in the Installation's three-dimensional radius, with the entire array covering the entire galaxy. The pulse targets the nervous system of sentient life forms via the issuing of a harmonic frequency. The only known way to avoid the effects of these pulses is to escape to a Shield World, located in slip-space and therefore immune from its effects, or to escape to Installation 00, which is out of range. Once activated, the other installations will fire simultaneously, eradicating all sentient life in the galaxy, thus starving and killing the Flood.