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Cassidy III

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Revision as of 05:58, January 11, 2019 by TheEld (talk | contribs)
Cassidy III
Astrographical

System:

Cassidy-Cybele system[1][2]

Orbital position:

Third (Cassidy); Sixth (Cybele)[1][2]

Moon(s):

Three[2]

Societal

Species:

Human[1]

Population:

Thousands[3]

Colonized:

Shorty before 2458[1]

Government:

 

Cassidy III, also referred to as Cybele VI or Freedom, is a planet.[1][2]

History

Prior to the firing of the Halo Array in 97,445 BCE, the planet later known as Cassidy III, Cybele 6, or Freedom was built upon by Forerunners, who built various structures on its surface which were embedded into the landscape.[1][4]

When Unified Earth Government pioneer groups initially scouted the planet, it was considered to be highly remote from the standpoint of human-occupied space at the time.[2] So although a UEG colony was established there, it was abandoned by the governing authorities by around 2458, rather soon after it had been settled.[1][2] This was due to the travel costs associated with the limited Shaw-Fujikawa translight engines available then.[2] The locals moved into the rubble a decade after its abandonment and found themselves sitting atop of a lot of Forerunner technology.[1] From that point on they quietly eked out a self-sufficient living there, at times selling some of the planet's Forerunner tech on the black market.[1] In 2508 the settlement referred to as the Hole in the Wall was founded by a large number of outlaws—mostly pirates—who wished to build a secure hideout for themselves.[2] Once this was done, these outlaws fell in with a bunch of insurrectionists on the run also in need of a place to hide. When the Insurrection began to wane due to the Covenant's war against humanity, a large portion of the United Rebel Front was folded into the group occupying Cassidy III.[2]

The Office of Naval Intelligence only discovered the Hole in the Wall thanks to an accidental slipspace failure which caused a survey team to stumble upon it during a routine expedition.[2] As the war with the Covenant raged on, ONI hid a number of items on and around Cassidy III, partly because they would be safe there but also in order to monitor the rebels present. The world was never seriously leveraged in order to keep from drawing the Covenant to it. Given its unique ability to remain hidden, the transfer of large amounts of UNSC assets to Cassidy III was one of hundreds of back-up plans to be considered in the event that the aliens ever found Earth. Following the cessation of the war ONI elected to keep the Hole's location classified as Top Secret but leave its existing population alone.[2] ONI had been monitoring the world for decades by 2558.[1][2] The last few probes it had sent to the system by then had returned with plenty of evidence of the surface's Forerunner technology and indications that the Hole in the Wall apparently still remained the only settlement.[2]

When the artificial intelligence Cortana led an uprising in late October of 2558 to seize control of the galaxy under the auspices of assuming the Mantle of Responsibility, the Hole in the Wall initially escaped her notice.[1][2] Adjacent colonies, even the smaller ones, were taken completely offline, so to speak, by the attenuation pulses employed by Guardian Custodes under Cortana's control.[1] The fact that the UNSC's sensors hadn't detected a single Guardian signature at Cybele VI made it abundantly clear to ONI that something about the technology on the planet was concealing it even from her despite the Forerunner resources she had acquired.[1]

List of appearances

Sources