Dextro Xur-pattern Spirit

The DX-class Dropship, otherwise known as the Spirit, is a Covenant infantry and logistical transport craft. They ceased to be in widespread use after the Battle of Installation 04, having been replaced by the new and improved Phantom class dropships.

Background

File:CovDropship11.jpg

A Spirit fires upon enemy infantry.

Spirits are angular, tuning fork/"U" shaped spacecraft with two parallel personnel bays along the exterior of each "prong". They are used to transport Elites, Jackals, Grunts and Hunters and have been known to ferry Covenant vehicles within the purple colored energy field between their prongs, usually Ghosts or other small objects such as supply canisters. Around the time of the First Battle of Earth, it would seem that the Spirits were completely replaced with the more heavily built Phantoms, though a few were still used in the Battle of Onyx. The spirit was used by Spartan 117 to get him and his team aboard a Covenant Carrier. During the Battle of Harvest, a destroyed Spirit was used by the Huragok, Lighter Than Some, as raw material to create a vehicle that would later be adopted by the Brutes as the "Brute Choppers".

It is speculated that the Spirit is not designed for combat drops, but is instead a Cargo transport, though it is armed with a light plasma cannon. The lack of effective offensive or defensive weaponry coupled with the small troop carrying capacity of the Spirit tends to support this. Since the Fleet stationed above Halo was originally a research operation, this use of non combat specific transportation would be understandable. During the events of the Battle of Installation 04 Spirits, were placed into combat roles by necessity. The Spirits were the dropships the UNSC encountered on the first Halo and hated them for their ability to drop Covenant troops in places to assault the UNSC forces and to give them air cover.

Operation

The Spirit is a moderately large craft, similar in size to the Pelican dropship of the UNSC. Capable of powered flight and hovering, this dropship appears quite cumbersome and awkward to pilots based on battlefield observations but has been known to reach speeds of 350 kilometers per hour whilst cruising and has a suspected maximum speed of 1100 KPH.

The craft is a dedicated transport of infantry and vehicles. As such it possesses only one defensive weapon, a heavy plasma cannon nearly identical to that of the Shade plasma turret. The weapon is located beneath the main fuselage of the vessel. It fires slowly but with fairly high accuracy. Yet the gun's invincibility makes up for it's bad defence of the ship. However, each bolt from the cannon takes a long time to reach its target, allowing for easy evasion especially if in a vehicle.

The Spirit possesses two troop bays each capable of holding four Grunts, Jackals or Elites. Within each of these bays there appears to be a door hinting at the possibility that more soldiers could be unleashed from deeper within the vessel. Each of these troop bays has two doors that open and close vertically. However they do not close fully and leave a small opening along the length of the bay. Keen eyed snipers can take advantage of this and terminate soldiers before they even touch the ground.

Between these extended personnel bays, an energy field fluctuates visibly as it generates the ship's anti-gravity propulsion (similar in appearance to the energy pulse of the "Gravity Lift" elevators the Covenant use to commute between the ground and the hovering ships). This same gravity-beam is used to ferry Shades, Ghosts and other ground vehicles to their destinations.

While these dropships have life support for use in vacuum, they do not have a slipspace drive. In Halo: First Strike, a Spirit was modified so it could be launched out of a ship already in slipspace. Even with this modification, the Spirit was unable to travel into slipspace on its own accord.

Appearances

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A Spirit dropship hovers over a battlefield

Spirits have only currently appeared in Halo: Combat Evolved. They do not make an appearance in Halo 2 or Halo 3 although they are mentioned in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. They made an appearance in a Halo Wars screenshot on page 43, issue 238 of Gamepro magazine, indicating that they will be a Covenant unit in Halo Wars. It also makes an appearance in Halo: Contact Harvest.

It is not specifically known why the Spirit was removed from Halo 2 and 3, however it could be that the Phantom was in the process of replacing it as a newer model, or that the Phantom was preferred by Bungie.

Spirit in Combat

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A Covenant Spirit dropship.

The Spirit, as it occurs in Halo: Combat Evolved is indestructible, unless a mod for the PC version is used for one shot kills. Then it will simply looked as if it had been burned, it loses its ball turret, and all occupants die. No amount of firepower that the player can bring to bear is capable of bringing the ship down if no mods are added. The best tactic, if on lower difficulty levels, is to attack the vulnerable infantry (shoot or toss a grenade) as they disembark from the Spirit. On higher difficulties, this would be unwise, hiding behind cover until the ship leaves is often the best course of action in this situation. Without cover or good tactics a careless player will die very quickly. As well as providing heavy support in combat it can drop off a unit of Covenant in the battle field. The unit is dispersed by getting out of the side of the dropship.

Known Spirits

• Brilliant Gift

Trivia

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Spirit Concept Art

Grunts deploying from a Spirit

• The Spirit did not get an official and sanctioned name until Halo: Ghosts of Onyx was released in October 2006. Up until that point, the ship was simply referred to as the "Covenant dropship." Other sources unofficially referred to it as the "Apparition", the "Spook", the "Harbinger", and even the "Bandit", based on the military term for an enemy used by a Marine to refer to a Spirit in Halo.
• In addition to its main cannon, the Spirit may be able to host one, or more, Plasma cannon per side, manned by a Grunt Heavy covering the deploying troops.
• The Marathon logo can be seen on the front of the cockpit.
• Lorraine McLees described the Spirit as "having the coolest rear-end of all the Covenant ships."
• Many Covenant aircraft share a similar name to "Spirit". The definition of the word spirit is also similar to that of Phantom, Wraith, Spectre, Ghost and Banshee.
• Captain Jacob Keyes commandeered one of the Spirit dropships to ferry himself, John-117, and a squad of marines off of the Covenant ship: Truth and Reconciliation during Halo: Combat Evolved. He uses the dropship itself to kill the two Hunters that try to bring the Spirit down, just as it's about to leave.
• The Spirit is slightly larger than its successor, the Phantom.
• The Gravity Fields between the carriages closely resemble the Shield doors from Halo 3.
• A Spirit can drop off what seems to be about 8-10 Covenant troops of various species which can be all killed with one well placed grenade under the belly of the Spirit.
• Enemies can be shot at while they are still in the bay of the Spirit even when the doors are closed.
• According to the Halo Graphic Novel, a Spirit Dropship called Brilliant Gift was taken over by the Flood and crashed into the Infinite Succor. This is where they infected the crew and resulted in future Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum getting his left mandibles cut off by his infected sub-commander. This ship would most likely be utilized by the Flood in their attempt to escape the Installation.
• As with the Pelican, it is impossible to destroy a Spirit Dropship in-game. However, near the downed Pelican in 343 Guilty Spark lies a crashed Spirit.
• A possible reason for the abandonment of the Spirit Dropship was the unorthodox deploying of troops, that could lead them into enemy fire if dropped incorrectly.

Related Articles

• Phantom- The successor of the DX-class Spirit Dropship.
• D77-TC Pelican Dropship- The UNSC Defense Force's equivalent to the DX-class Spirit Dropship.