Orbital defense platform

Orbital defense platform
Production information
Role:	Interdict enemy spacecraft Bombard likely landing zones
Technical specifications
Length:	Variable
Width:	Variable
Height:	Variable
Mass:	Variable
Armament:	1 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon Point-defense guns
Chronological and affiliation
Era:	Human-Covenant War
Affiliation:	UNSC Air Force Orbital Defense Command

"That MAC gun can put a round clean through a Covenant capital ship."

— Avery Johnson, describing the gun of a Moncton-class orbital weapons platform.

Orbital defense platform (ODP), also known as an orbital weapon platform, is a general term for a wide variety of space stations employed by the UNSC. Stations falling into this classification include unmanned weapon satellites all the way to large stations with a capital grade Magnetic Accelerator Cannon built into it. Some classes of ODP have the hull classification symbol of OWP.

Orbital defense platforms are frequently placed in geosynchronous orbit and deployed in groups, or clusters, of two to five platforms. The well-equipped and large bridge of an ODP is suitable for directing large-scale engagements. Such was the case when Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood directed UNSC forces from an ODP during the Battle of Earth. These platforms are capable of destroying even the largest of Covenant capital ships but are vulnerable to R'sisho-pattern Ticks which can avoid the heavy slugs and latch onto the stations. If they survive the point defense guns, it is up to the UNSC personnel within the stations to repel any boarders.

Design details

Facilities

Internally, the stations are remarkably spacious, complete with high ceilings and a monorail system to move personnel and equipment. In addition to numerous small craft bays, there are two docks for larger ships, such as freighters, or even frigates. These docking bays could possibly be used to hold Longsword fighters used to protect the station from hostile spacecraft. The design incorporates many features against potential hostile boarding action, including security stations and small arms racks situated at strategic locations.

Armament

MAC platforms

The primary and crucial armament is a Mk. V "Super" Magnetic Accelerator Cannon capable of causing near-fatal damage to even a shielded Covenant capital warship with a single slug. The slug can weigh up to 3,000 tons and is launched at point four-tenth the speed of light, ensuring the complete annihilation of the target. As with starship-mounted MACs, a platform's cannon is commonly controlled by an AI. Due to the immense power of the MAC, a large recoil dampening system is situated at the base of the cannon. The weapon is vulnerable to the detonation of nuclear weapons, as their superconductive coils could be burned out from their electromagnetic pulse.

Point defense guns

Some platforms are armed with a number of point-defense guns for close-in defense against enemy munitions, fighters, and boarding craft.

Power plant

ODPs do not possess the power generation equipment necessary to fire their main armament. Instead, they receive power from ground-based generators. An effective strategy to neutralize the formidable ODPs would be to disable the generators via ground assault. This would disable the platform's weaponry without destroying it, allowing this valuable prize to be captured or destroyed outright. The Covenant used this strategy during their invasion of Reach, dropping troops to the planet's surface and destroying these generators. This paved the way for Covenant forces to completely overwhelm the UNSC forces in the space battle over Reach.

Deployment

Reach

An ODP above Reach firing its main cannon.

By August 2552, Reach was protected by 20 orbital defense platforms, with at least one being an Erőd-class orbital weapon platforms Another was a Moncton-class orbital weapon platform which was in place by May 2517. A number of Reach's ODPs were online by 2527. During the Fall of Reach, the orbital defense platforms inflicted massive losses on the Covenant armada in the opening stages of the battle, as well as providing fire support for ground forces on Reach. Large numbers of UNSC forces were deployed to protect the orbital platforms' planetside power generators, but they ultimately fell against determined enemy assaults. The disabling of the defense platforms was a major factor on the battle's outcome.

Earth

The outbreak of the Human-Covenant War prompted a massive expansion of Earth's defenses. Even as late as the Battle of Reach preparations had not yet been completed; a series of new platforms above Earth were set to come online on September 14. By October 2552, some 300 ODPs were operational. Many of Earth's ODPs were named after points of interest that they roughly kept station over.

A portion of the 300 platforms first saw action at the early stages of the Battle for Earth. Athens Station and Malta Station were each destroyed by antimatter charges installed by Covenant boarding parties, while Cairo Station only narrowly avoided the same fate as the other platforms thanks to Master Chief's removal of the bomb on board. The ODPs were used throughout the drawn-out Battle for Earth after more Covenant fleets began to arrive in the following days and weeks, but the Covenant might have already destroyed numerous stations especially when the final Covenant loyalist naval forces and the Prophet of Truth himself arrived at Earth on the Forerunner Dreadnought on November 17.

During the Didact's attack on Earth in mid-2557, ODPs defended Earth from the Didact alongside the ships of the UNSC Home Fleet. However, the Didact's ship Mantle's Approach was too heavily shielded for even the ODPs Super MACs and as a result, the Master Chief had to destroy the ship from the inside with a HAVOK nuclear warhead.

New Carthage

The MJOLNIR GEN2 Infiltrator was tested on New Carthage's orbital defense platforms.

Camber

Several orbital defense platforms were stationed around Camber; these were eventually destroyed when the Covenant destroyed the planet during the Human-Covenant War.

Meridian

Several orbital defense platforms held station above the Outer Colony of Meridian, owing to the world's critical importance as an industrial supplier of the UNSC; these stations were lost to the Covenant during the Battle of Meridian in 2551.

Stations of the line

• Moncton-class orbital weapon platform - A large MAC-based ODP that was deployed over Reach and en masse over Earth.

• H2-CairoStation-MAC-ODP.png

  Cutout of Cairo Station, a Moncton-class from Halo 2.

• Erőd-class orbital weapon platform - A large MAC-based ODP deployed over Reach.

• 

  Model of the orbital MAC platforms for Halo: Fleet Battles.

Gameplay

Halo: Fleet Battles

UNSC MAC Platform

This element includes a single ODP.

• Cost: 160 points
• Movement: 0"
• Damage Track: 7 • 6 • 3
• Build rating: 3
• Hangars: 4
• Boarding Craft: 2
• Security detail: 6
• System loadouts:
  • Emplacement
  • Point defense (5)
  • Titanium armor (5)
• Primary weapon: Super MAC
  • Range: 20/40"
  • Weapon loadouts: MAC (3)
  • Firing arc: Forward
  • Dice: 10

Rules

• Fighter Cover: Only Interceptors can be selected by MAC platforms. Bombers are not available.
• Vital Defensive Asset: A maximum of two MAC platforms per full 1,000 points are permitted.

Trivia

Browse more images in this article's gallery page.

• All known orbital defense platforms over Earth are named after cities on Earth. It is also apparent that the stations' names are also based roughly on the region they orbit above: Cairo, Athens, and Malta, for example, are located rather close to each other geographically. However, the stations' locations do not directly correspond to the planetside locations of the cities, as the other stations in Cairo's battle cluster can easily be seen with the naked eye, whereas their namesakes are hundreds of kilometers apart.
• Two weeks after the Fall of Reach, when the UNSC Security Council met at HIGHCOM in Sydney, it is mentioned by Colonel Ackerson that most of Earth's ODPs would take ten days before becoming fully operational.
• The orbital defense platforms had entered the conceptual stage sometime around the 2490s, as Avery Johnson mentions that they were being proposed around the same time he shipped out for boot camp.

Gallery

• 

  Concept art of an ODP's fighter launch bay Halo 2.

• 

  Concept art of an M12 Force Application Vehicle in an ODP's interior airlock.

• 

  Concept art of an ODP's interior airlock.

• 

  Concept art of an ODP's weaponry controls.

• 

  Cairo Station's battle cluster above Earth, one of the dozens of triads in the orbital defense grid.

• 

  The typical layout of an ODP.

• 

  Cairo Station right before the Battle of Earth.

• 

  Nassau Station firing its MAC in Halo: Uprising.

• 

  An orbital defense platform above Reach, along with the Epsilon Eridani Defense Fleet in Halo: Fall of Reach.

• 

  An ODP, as shown in one of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary's Terminals.

• Bomb Squad.jpg

  An ODP shown in orbit above Earth.

• 

  Oaxaca Station in 2558 in Halo: Escalation.

• H2A - ODP.jpg

  Cairo Station with docked In Amber Clad from Halo 2: Anniversary.

• 

  The underside of a Super MAC platform.

• 

  The dampening system at the base of an ODP's MAC.

• 

  Cairo Station firing its MAC.

• 

  ODPs firing at a Covenant fleet in the Halo 2 Anniversary Terminals.

• 

  Orbital MACs in Halo: Fleet Battles.

• 

  An ODP in the vicinity of a newly awakened Guardian above Earth in Halo 5: Guardians.

• 

  Several ODPs in Earth orbit as the Infinity and her escorts approach the Guardian.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (First appearance)
• Halo: First Strike (Mentioned only)
• Halo 2
• Halo: Uprising
• Halo Legends
  • Origins
• Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
  • Pariah
• Halo: Reach
• Halo: Fall of Reach
  • Boot Camp
  • Invasion
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
  • Terminals
• Halo 4 (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Escalation
• Halo 2: Anniversary
• Halo: Fleet Battles
• Halo: The Fall of Reach - The Animated Series
• Halo 5: Guardians
• Halo Mythos
• Halo: Lone Wolf
• Halo: Point of Light