United Nations Space Command

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

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 of 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 UNSC 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. The UEG began to wage a bloody struggle against groups of terrorists (or freedom fighters) called the Insurrectionists, who wanted independence. The UNSCDF, the military branch of the UNSC, constantly battled the Insurrectionists. As the situation deteriorated, the UNSC created the SPARTAN-II Program.

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.

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.

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 managed to escape the planet, with two SPARTANs on board, Linda-058, who was presumably dead 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 of 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 flotilla 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. The Great Schism, also known as the Covenant Civil War, would last for seven years. Nevertheless, by November, the remaining Covenant Loyalists had subjugated large parts of Africa, devastating much of the planet. 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. Since 2553 the UNSC has engaged in an extensive period of reconstruction in order to restore stability to the shattered remnants of human space. The UNSC has moved to reclaim those worlds that were not completely destroyed during the Human-Covenant war. The UNSC also maintains 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 has been supplying arms to a Sangheili faction, one ideologically opposed to the Arbiter, to destabilize their government rendering them incapable of threatening Earth. It remains to be seen how effective this strategy will be. As of 2558 the Sangheili Remnant was actively engaged against the UNSC possibly showing that the destabilization had partially failed.

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

Duties
The UNSC is the navigation and military arm of the Unified Earth Government and the Colonial Administration Authority. Thus, it did not administrate the colonies without the consensus of the CAA or the UEG before the Human-Covenant war.

The UNSC sent out draft notices during the Human-Covenant war.

Military
The UNSC's defensive militia force is the UNSC Defense Force (UNSCDF), and consists of the UNSC Air Force, the UNSC Army, the UNSC Marine Corps, and the UNSC Navy.

The UNSCDF is run by the UNSC Security Council, with the professional head being UNSC High Command, based on Earth. Control is exercised through regional CENTCOMs, which have responsibility over certain areas of space. The Navy houses the divisions of UNSC Marine Corps (including the special forces branch of the UNSC Marines known as Orbital Drop Shock Troopers), Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), and the Fleet. The UNSC Army and UNSC Air Force maintain garrisons on colony worlds. When certain rebellious factions began to rise in the late 2510s, the UNSC was forced to police its protected colonies tirelessly to keep privateers and pirates from raiding the colonies and any UNSC ships.

List
Unified Earth Government and Colonial Administration Authority
 * United Nations Space Command
 * Commerce
 * Department of Commercial Shipping
 * Military
 * UNSC Security Committee
 * UNSC Security Council
 * United Nations Space Command Defense Force (UNSCDF)
 * High Command (HIGHCOM)
 * Administrative
 * Personnel Command (PERSCOM)
 * Colonial Military Administration
 * UNSC Astrophysics
 * UNSC Medical Corps (MEDCORPS)
 * UNSC Engineering Corps (ENGCORP)
 * UNSC Test and Evaluation Corps
 * UNSC Ordnance Committee
 * UNSC Procurement
 * Uniformed Services
 * Unified Ground Command (UNICOM)
 * UNSC Air Force
 * Special Warfare Command (SPECWARCOM)
 * UNSC Army
 * UNSC Army Airborne
 * UNSC Navy
 * Naval Command (NAVCOM)
 * Fleet Command (FLEETCOM)
 * Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI)
 * Logistical Operations Command (NavLogCom)
 * Office of Investigations (OI)
 * Special Operations Command
 * Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR)
 * UNSC Marine Corps
 * UNSC Marine Chaplain Corps
 * UNSC Marine Special Operations
 * Orbital Drop Shock Troopers
 * UNSC Spartan Corps
 * Other
 * UNSC Symphony Orchestra

Organization
The UNSC utilise the Service Number system to organize and identify personnel.

Armament
Unlike the Covenant, UNSC military technology is still based on comparatively primitive, but effective, mechanisms - projectile weaponry, wheeled vehicles, and combustion engines. The UNSC's grasp of scientific concepts is far more advanced than the Covenant, but turning these concepts into functional machinery has proven more problematic. Recently, the UNSC has introduced a variety of Covenant-derived technologies into their arsenal: gravity plating aboard ships, energy shielding to protect SPARTAN-II soldiers, and limited use of Directed Energy Weapons, usually lasers, such as the Spartan Laser.

By the time the war began, humanity had reached Tier 3 of the Forerunner civilization ranking system. Technological improvements continued to rise due to the capture of advanced Covenant equipment, which was studied and adapted for human needs. The very best and cutting edge of UNSC war assets were supplied to the SPARTAN-II Program. Other enhancements geared towards mass production were distributed to the SPARTAN-IIIs and IVs. One such example of war time innovation was the energy shielding adapted and improved for use on the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor.

Starship
UNSC starship weaponry is based around missiles and Magnetic Accelerator Cannons. Their technological inferiority in the face of the Covenant means that it was often necessary for the UNSC to have a three-to-one numerical advantage against them in ship-to-ship combat. The UNSC also possesses a weapon of mass destruction in the form of the NOVA Bomb.

, built near the end of the conflict, was perhaps the height of UNSC technical achievement during this troubled period. Incorporating every scrap of technical knowledge that had been scavenged and reverse-engineered from Forerunner ruins, the Infinity stood apart as the most formidable warship and exploration vessel in human history.

Seaborne
The UNSC also appears to maintain a seaborne surface navy on planets with large bodies of water, such as Earth. At the very least, they had aircraft carriers available to provide air support in the form of Pelicans and F99 UCAVs.

Swords of Sanghelios
After the Elites separated from the Covenant, they became allies with the UNSC. The Swords of Sanghelios worked with humanity up until the official end of the Human-Covenant war. After the war, the UNSC's relationship with them has stayed positive, with both forces working together to secure the remaining Halo rings, such as Installation 07. Despite these positive relations, UNSC upper-command did not want to work with them in the Sangheili Civil War.

Technology sharing between the two factions began to be more commonplace by 2558. A new model of Warthog called the Sword Needler Hog was designed using Swords of Sanghelios tech to assist those working with Arbiter. New Hybrid guns were also being designed, featuring the Type-51 Carbine scope mounted on top. The DMR version was used by the Elites of joint patrols.

Public
"UNSC ain't exactly a totalitarian state."

- Edward Buck

"It's still a state."

- Holly Tanaka

The UNSC's pre-Covenant War and wartime policies were viewed with hostility by the civilian populace, especially within rebel movements. Starting with the implementation of the Cole Protocol and martial law, the UNSC's political takeover of the UEG and CMA branches and its generally authoritarian military policies championed over the course of the Human-Covenant war, the UNSC's public image has been stained by rebel and civilian allegations of fascism, totalitarianism and oppression. With ONI's war crimes, and unethical projects, many of these allegations aren't baseless.

Most of this perceived UNSC-directed oppression lies with poor administration in the Outer Colonies, which led to the violent Scyllion Warehouse District Riot perpetrated by proto-rebellious groups of dissatisfied colonial workers suffering from hunger and poverty.

Trivia

 * The UNSC logo was mistakenly used to represent the United Nations Security Council on the British Broadcasting Corporation channel.