Unyielding Hierophant

The Unyielding Hierophant was a Covenant command-and-control center and refit-battle station that was capable of supporting a fleet of over 500 capital ships. It was capable of slipspace jumps, and was over 10 kilometers in circumference. Scans show this type of vessel to have at least 2 fusion reactor cores for power.

Appearance

The Unyielding Hierophant is shaped like an eight, with two tear-drop shaped bulbous sections connected at the center, each approximately 15 km long. A rotating ring is connected to the central hub, where Covenant cruisers and carriers can dock.

Internally it has large "rooms" that are built with foliage and animals to simulate the Covenant's worlds to make occupants feel more at home, rather than on a huge station. These areas even have temples for their religious sessions.

Destruction

At the time of its destruction it was located in the Tau Ceti system. The system was conquered by Covenant forces in 2530, and was therefore used as a rendezvous point for a Covenant force of approximately 500 warships before they prepared to launch their impending attack on Earth. When the UNSC found out about this, the crew of the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg decided to initiate a first strike against the enemy. A team of SPARTAN-IIs, among them John-117, Grace-093, Fred-104 and Linda-058 took a Covenant dropship, after they had reinforced the armor of the dropship with Titanium-A armor inside and out so the ship could withstand the transition from slipspace to normal space. The team departed and made the transition from slipspace to normal space in one piece.

Once they entered normal space, John saw the vastness of the station and realized that the 60 little dots were actually mighty Covenant cruisers, all attached to a central hub. Their ship was pinged three times, but according to the copied Cortana, they've been curious about our status, but not as much as you might expect. There's a tremendous amount of COM traffic. They're probably only interested in us as a navigation hazard. John figured to test his luck and told Cortana to send a reply that the ship's engines were down and to send out a recovery team to take them in for repairs. The Covenant sent out a C & C ferry to take them in. Cortana simulated static when asked about the ship's ID number, but the Covenant were to preoccupied to care.

They infiltrated the station to render it inoperable but, quickly realized that even if the station is inoperable, the Covenant armada would still make the jump to Earth. The only solution was for the SPARTANs to blow the station up by triggering a self-destruct mechanism. Once on board, the team found that there was an artificial gravity of some kind. Everyone but Linda was going in hot and heavy, while Linda was light and covered the team's back. To John's surprise, they found very little resistance when they exited the ship in the repair bay. They did however find thousands of Engineers. There were also two Grunts with white methane breathers, who were probably mechanics or some other non-combatant rank; they were easily avoided, however. John took the bay in at a glance and saw enough slots for over a hundred single ships. John finds a holographic terminal and places the Cortana copy in the drive slot. The good news was each lobe has a central reactor complex with five hundred twelve-terawatt units, similar in design to the pinch fusion reactors of their ships. The bad news was John had to physically get Cortana to the nearest reactor interface which was 7 kilometers away. John knew it was possible, but refused to go that distance without info on Covenant patrols. So, the copied Cortana said there is a way, she could copy herself, but warned that there were some risks of copying a copy. John said do it anyway.

With one casualty, Grace-093, the SPARTANs then escaped the doomed station on a Covenant dropship, rendezvousing with the UNSC Gettysburg. During the battle, the Unyielding Hierophant was destroyed, along with the Ascendant Justice and nearly all of the approximately 500 Covenant ships, with only 12 of them surviving. It stands as a monumental achievement for the UNSC, and a discerning loss for the Covenant.

Trivia

• Because of his trouble reading small text, Sergeant Johnson incorrectly refers to this station as the Uneven Elephant.
• This is the location of the Spartans first encounters the Brutes. John is almost defeated by one and Grace-093 takes a Brute Shot round to her mid section, killing her instantly.
• The five hundred twelve-terawatt energy is used to power a shield generator that can repel the collision of a small moon.