Lost with All Hands

The image used on Halo Waypoint to represent the series.

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The Halo Wars story retold.

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Lost with All Hands is a series of five short Halo universe documentaries uploaded to Halo Waypoint in 2010. The series is predominantly focused on recounting the events of the story of Halo Wars. They were later published on the official Halo YouTube channel. All five videos are transcribed below.

The Secret Below Harvest

For fifty years the Phoenix-class vessel known as Spirit of Fire served well as a colony ship. In 2520 it was recommisioned by the UNSC to be used as a warship against the mounting Insurrection, but five years later humanity would discover something much worse than rebellion - an alien alliance known as the Covenant had arrived at the planet Harvest. After a series of short and brutal space engagements it became clear that the Covenant would never relent. In March of 2526, Vice Admiral Preston Cole led a UNSC fleet to retake Harvest, intially managing to quell the Covenant's assault. But this battle was far from over.

For five years, the UNSC would fight tooth and nail for Harvest and with seemingly renewed interest, the Covenant would fight back - glassing most of the planet's surface while amassing a significant force near its northern pole. Under Cole's command, Captain James Cutter send the Spirit of Fire's ground-side forces against the Covenant stronghold. They were looking for something buried beneath the planet's surface, an ancient machine from a forgotten race of beings known as the Forerunners. Leading the Covenant's campaign was a ruthless Arbiter by the name of Ripa 'Moramee, a commander who took direct orders from the Prophet of Regret. Ripa, like a select number of Elites before him, had become the Arbiter in order to reclaim his lost glroy after having failed to overthrow his own clan leader. Upon discovering that the relic was an interstellar map leading to another world, Regret ordered the Arbiter to destroy the structure and return to High Charity.

As the Covenant departed, the Spirit of Fire's local forces, led by Sergeant John Forge, managed to reclaim the Forerunner relic, also discovering the map and after briefly analysing it, professor Ellen Anders (the ship's resident scientist) determined that the map pointed to the colony of Arcadia.

It was then that Captain Cutter led the Spirit of Fire to the new planet, hoping to uncover what the Covenant were after.

Battle for Arcadia

Following an ancient map buried below the surface of Harvest, the Spirit of Fire arrived at the colony world of Arcadia on February 9th 2531 - only to find the Covenant forces already laying waste to the planet. Before the Spirit's arrival, four UNSC ships the Belfast, Pillar of Autumn, Texas and Armstrong, had already engaged a pair of Covenant cruisers. These Covenant ships were led by the Arbiter, a relentless and brutal commander who took orders directly from the Prophet of Regret. The UNSC vessels managed to destroy one of the cruisers but only after losing the Texas and the Belfast, with both the Autumn and the Armstrong suffering from significant damage.

Upon receiving a distress call from Arcadia's surface, Captain Cutter and the ship's AI Serina deployed groundside forces to aid the civilian evacuation. Arcadia and its capital city of Pirth, once considered a luxurious tourist destination, were now being reduced to ash. It was there that Sergeant Forge fought alongside Spartans and Marines, forcing the Covenant out of the capital city and into the planets unexplored regions. This success, however, was only momentary. As the Covenant focused entirely on a remote area, constructing a massive energy shield to hide their activity. Confused by their actions, Anders and Forge travelled to the planet's surface, using a collection of plasma-based Rhinos to punch a hole through the Covenant shield. There they found ruins from another age, once again unearthed by the Covenant. Using buried Forerunner technology, the aliens were constructing a modified Scarab larger than any they had ever built before. Prior to its completion the UNSC forces managed to destroy it, eventually scavenging through the wreckage for clues to the Covenant's occupation. Little did they know the Arbiter had already found what he came for. The ruins on Arcadia pointed him to yet another world, but this one hold a secret that could change the course of the war.

The Shield World

After breaking through the Covenant's defences on the planet Arcadia, the UNSC forces directed by Spirit of Fire - Sergeant Forge and Professor Anders - learned that their enemy had stumbled upon yet another Forerunner artefact. On the planet's surface were ruins of an ancient civilisation known as the Forerunners, though Anders and Forge did not know at the time. There was also a map which led to a massive shield world, a long-since abandoned superstructure hidden in the remote regions of space. This artificial construct held the key to a dormant Forerunner fleet, technology which would provide the Covenant with unstoppable power.

But since the Covenant could not physically activate this installation they were forced toward an alternate solution. Recognising that the humans' Professor Anders had some level of understanding about the artefact on Harvest, Regret sent the Arbiter back to Arcadia for her. And with little opposition, he abducted Anders, speeding back to the shield world and returning his quarry to the Prophet of Regret. This posed yet another challenge for the crew of the Spirit of Fire, as the loss of Anders was a significant security breach.

Under pressure from Forge and the Spartans, Captain Cutter ordered the Spirit of Fire to follow the escaping Covenant vessel into slipspace. On February 23rd, 2531, they arrived in uncharted space high above an alien world - and below, Anders' signal lie somewhere on its surface. Cutter immediately ordered Forge and the Spartans planetside to find the professor, but when they touched down they found something else. Thriving on this strange world was a parasitic creature known as the Flood. After waging a series of ground engagements against this new enemy, Anders' signal was once again lost, forcing Forge and the Spartans back aboard the Spirit. When Anders' signal would return shortly later the crew of the Spirit would learn the truth about this world and the devastating potential it possessed.

The Forerunner Fleet

After the Covenant fled from the planet of Arcadia, the UNSC Spirit of Fire pursued them to the outermost reaches of space, fully recognising that the capture of professor Anders was a security breach that could change the course of the war. Following her signal to a barren planet deep within Covenant territory, Serina, the ship's AI, conducted a thorough scan of the world's surface. In the process she accidentally triggered a mysterious machine, openingan immense aperture on the surface and forcing the Spirit of Fire below. At the centre of this world laid the Apex Site - an elevated platform where the Covenant commander known as the Arbiter had brought the human professor. It was here that the Prophet of Regret ordered that Anders be used to activate the dormant Forerunner vessels that hung around them, a fleet of unimaginable power.

Before he was able to activate the fleet, a new threat was revealed as the Spirit of Fire worked its way through dark caverns within the planet's shell and toward their position. Rising from the bizarre construct, the UNSC ship found itself on the interior of the Dyson sphere, something the Forerunners called a shield world - a superstructure with a vast interior surface and a burning sun in its core. The Arbiter wasted no time addressing the human presence, sending a Covenant destroyer to meet it as it sped toward them. A brief engagement ensued, in which both ships were badly damaged, escaping to the opposite ends of the shell's interior. The Arbiter quickly forced Anders to trigger the Apex Site's main console, an act which would activate the Forerunner fleet. While the Covenant were momentarily distracted, Anders used a nearby platform to escape to the shield world's surface. There she would find herself in peril once more as the savage Flood parasites spread across the structure's interior.

Lost with All Hands

Drawn to the unexplored recesses of the galaxy in pursuit of the Covenant, the crew of the Spirit of Fire discovered a Forerunner shield world. This mysterious Dyson sphere held a long-since dormant secret: within its interior hung a fleet of Forerunner ships, a power so immense that theiur explotiation at the hands of the Covenant would most certainly spell the end of humanity. The Spirit of Fire's resident scientist, Professor Anders, had been captured by the Covenantt and forced to activate the fleet on an elevated platform known as the Apex Site. Narrowly escaping, she quickly found herslef on the interior surface of this artificial world, a surface which now surged with the parsite known as the Flood. Fortunately for Anders, Sergeant Forge and the Spirit's crew had tracked her to this location, quickly bringing her to safety.

There, Captain Cutter and the professor discussed the bitter reality of the Covenant's newly0acquired Forerunner fleet. With no debate, they agreed that the only way to stop the Covenant would be to destroy the entire shield world and everything within it. Disengaging their slipspace drive, the Spirit's crew lowered it to the world's interior surface near the base of the Apex Site. They knew that in order to destroy the fleet they would have to destroy the shield world as well - an act which could only be achieved by overloading their FTL drive near the installation's star. Pushing through the last vestiges of Covenant infantry, Forge and the Spartan Red Team led a charge to the Apex Site. Although the Covenant had been monetarily forced from their position, they were not without a fight. Quickly recovering, the Arbiter and a large contingent of Elites assaulted the Apex Site, engaging Forge and the Spartans.

After a brief but bloody battle, the Spartans emerged victorious and despite Forge only narrowly defeating the Arbiter, he realised that the slipspace drive had been damaged in the process. It would now require a manual overload - someone would have to stay behind. Without hesitation, Forge chose himself for the task, ordering the Spartans back to the Spirit of Fire. As the drive overloaded, the Spirit of Fire sped toward the shield world's sun, using the star's expanding gravity well to slingshot their vessel out of the shield world as the entire superstructure collapsed around them. A short time later, Captain Cutter would order the Spirit of Fire survivors into cryosleep: without an FTL, the shipw ould take years to return home. While the UNSC long-held the crew of the Spirit of Fire as missing, they suddenly changed this designation to Lost With All Hands on February 10th, 2534. The reason for this change was never publicly disclosed, but remained aggressively contested among suspicious family members of the crew. The true fate of the Spirit of Fire, its captain, and its crew, remains a mystery even to this day.

See also

• Archive:Halo Waypoint/2009 to 2014/Universe/Events

External links

• Halo Waypoint - Lost with All Hands