Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle

Summary
Small orbital insertion vehicles used by the UNSC, and namely, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, though it should be noted SPARTAN II's are also fully trained and qualified in the use of such insertion vehicles. They are used to transport individual troops from a ship in a rapid assault, and landing them at an objective. Two advantages of these are that they are harder to hit with anti aircraft fire and they are faster and more efficent than assault boats or Pelican transports. Each pod bears the name of an individual trooper, for identification should the pod be destroyed, or should the information be needed for tactical reasons.

HEVs are vaguely box shaped and are made of a ceramic skin. Some of this skin burns away during entry of the atmosphere. Because of that, the pods sometimes become fatally hot. Trooper pods are seen in the level Delta Halo. They use a parachute to allow for a softer landing, but they sometimes break away. The HEV automatically deploys a backup chute, but they aren't as effective, and deaths still result.

UNSC insertation protocols state that the command unit of an ODST mision must land first, so that the troops could be organized as quickly as possible. The HEV of a command unit is equipped with a lot of gear that the regular HEVs don't have, including high-powered imaging gear and the Class C military AI required to operate it. Wellsley was one such AI. During Halo 2, the Master Chief along with an Orbital Drop Shock Troopers platoon made a combat insertion onto Delta Halo and, as would be expected, Cortana was more then capable of taking the place of the Class C (and presumably 'dumb') AI in this role.

The Covenant eventually created their own type of HEVs, used for Elite shock troops of their own. It is unclear if there is a Covenant organization similar to the ODSTs. However, these HEVs are seen in the Halo 2 level Outskirts, as well as the original Halo 2 2003 E3 trailer.

Related Links

 * Orbital Insertion Pods
 * Retrieved from the GNU FDL article Human Entry Vehicles