United Nations Space Command
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The United Nations Space Command (commonly abbreviated as UNSC) is a fictional organization in the Halo series of games and novels.
The UNSC is the military wing of Earth's United Nations government that is governed by the High Command and is headquartered on Reach (until 2552) and Sydney, Australia, Earth. The UNSC is tasked with enforcing law and order (including suppressing rebel insurrections), and protecting the Inner and Outer Colonies through the Colonial Military Administration.
The UNSC is currently involved in a 30 year war with the technologically superior Covenant and after the Covenant Civil War began, they made an uneasy alliance with the Elite-led Covenant Separatists.
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Military units and divisions
- Marines are the most commonly encountered trooper in the UNSC. They are used in a range of activities from defending installations and ships, to actively engaging enemy forces. It is unknown whether or not there is a UNSC Army.
- Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, also known as the "Helljumpers", are elite special forces of the Marines that can be deployed into a combat zone by low-orbit drop. For a detailed description, see ODST.
- Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is responsible for gathering, interpreting, and disseminating information gathered by UNSC forces. In addition, it maintains many top secret projects, such as the SPARTAN II project.
Technology
Despite the fact that the Halo universe is in the 26th century, human technology is largely unchanged. However, mankind has reached the stars and created a modern interstellar empire, made only possible with spacecraft and Shaw-Fujikawa slipstream drives, which allow quick travel over extremely long distances, although the accuracy of the system is still rough.
A jump in technology was made once the Covenant became a major threat to the survival of humanity. Like the Covenant with the Forerunner, the UNSC has managed to procure Covenant technology and apply it. Unlike the Covenant, human scientists are willing to innovate from this advanced technology and do more than merely copy weaponry. Much of the SPARTAN II Project's technological area, which includes the development of the MJOLNIR MK5 battle armor and its shielding system, is largely derived from Covenant technology.
The SPARTAN Projects
The SPARTAN projects was conceived as a project to create a new generation of "super-soldiers" that would be able to be sent into any outer-colony which rebelled. In the first SPARTAN project, volunteers with military backgrounds were accepted but the results left much to be desired, mostly in psychological conditioning and performance. With the SPARTAN-II project, children throughout the colonies were genetically tested, and the children who tested positive for all the genetic markers were visited by the UNSC to narrow down the number, as there were only enough resources for about half as many children as were genetically suitable. The children who made it into the project were chosen by a coin-flip.
After the children were selected, they were kidnapped and replaced with quickly grown clones so that nobody would discover their abductions, and taken to the military stronghold of Reach, where they would be trained to be the ultimate soldiers. When they were old enough, they were surgically modified to be stronger, faster, smarter, have faster reflexes and superior eyesight. Those that survived the procedures went on to become SPARTAN-II soldiers. While the feature most associated with the SPARTAN-IIs is the MJOLNIR combat armor, their first mission was done without use of any form of it, and later missions done only with a stripped down version. It wasn't until just before the Covenant assaulted Reach that they were given the full MJOLNIR, which until that point was still in research.
The MJOLNIR battle armor now has been upgraded to the MJOLNIR Mark VI Armor. This newer version of the MJOLNIR has better sheilding capabilities and are more resilient and stronger.
Weapons
See the main article on List of weapons in the Halo universe.
Space Craft The Primary armament of UNSC spacecraft are Magnetic Accelertor Cannons [MAC's]. These use powerful magnets to accelerate projectiles weighing 600 tons in the case of ships, or 5000ton in the case of SMAC platforms. These projectiles of Depleted Uranium, Titainum-A or Tungsten to over 40% of the speed of light. As well as MAC's, UNSC ships employ a variety of missile and gun systems. The primary missle of they employ is the Archer anti-ship missile. Alternativley they can deploy the large Shiva thermonuclear warhead. As well as this UNSC mounts 50mm MLA autocannons for defence against enemy fighters and boarding craft. UNSC ships also carry a number of C-709 Longsword Interceptors. These are armed with 110mm gattling Cannons and Anvil-10 ASM's. Alternativly they can be radio controlled and use to carry a Kamikaze Shiva.
Small Arms UNSC small use conventional technology in their working mechanism. Basicly projectiles and chemical propellants. On the other hand they tend to use relatively unconventional structural designs [Bullpups, etc]. As well as this they employ various Head Up Displays [HUDs], smart linked scopes, and digital amunition counters.
Vehicles
See the main article on UNSC vehicles
Vessels
The UNSC fleet has been decimated by 30 years of war with the Covenant, but the shipyards continue to produce vessels to defend humanity. Below is a list of known UNSC ships.
- Trafalgar, a supercarrier.
- Pillar of Autumn, a Halcyon-class cruiser. See the main article on Pillar of Autumn.
- Leviathan, a Marathon-class cruiser.
- Iroquois, a destroyer; an unseen Covenant tracking device on that ship led to the fall of Reach.
- In Amber Clad (FFG-142), a frigate captained by Miranda Keyes and involved in the Battle of New Mombasa. Abandoned at Delta Halo and subsequently captured by The Flood and crashed into High Charity.
- Circumference, an ONI stealth-ship; prowler.
- Commonwealth, a frigate.
- Gettysburg, a destroyer.
- Cairo, Athens, Malta, Super MAC Cannon Orbital Platform; 300 orbital platforms defended Earth during the Covenant attack, but many were destroyed, including the Athens and Malta.