Makar-pattern light corvette

Makar-pattern
Class attributes
Identification:	UNSC Three-letter code: DAV
Operators:	Covenant Covenant remnants Swords of Sanghelios
In service:	Third Age of Reclamation-present
General characteristics Type: Light corvette Length: 485 meters (1,590 ft) Width: 202 meters (660 ft) Mass: 5 million tonnes Maneuver drive: Repulsor engines Slipspace drive: Borer-equipped Hull: Nanolaminate plating Sensors: Luminary Electronic warfare: Ushab-pattern stealth shroud Armaments: 1 Arkan-pattern plasma beam emitter 4 Melusean-pattern heavy plasma cannons Air facilities: Dropships and strikecraft

The Makar-pattern light corvette (UNSC three-letter classification: DAV-class light corvette) is a class of corvette formerly in service with the now-defunct Covenant fleet. Commonly assigned in stealth operations, vessels of this class were also tasked with the deployment and retrieval of Ranger teams.

Overview

Design details

The Makar-pattern light corvette is smaller and more nimble, though otherwise similar in design, to the larger Ceudar-pattern heavy corvette. Like many warships of the Covenant, the Makar-pattern has a cetacean aspect to it, with a smooth nanolaminate hull and curved features. The Makar-pattern is used to infiltrate a planet's defenses for reconnaissance and transmit data from the world's surface, making way for larger invasion forces. Despite its limited weaponry, the Makar-pattern corvette is equipped with a Ushab-pattern stealth shroud system that utilises a combination of distortion screens and a multispectral hypersink to render it imperceptible to enemy sensors regardless of species, and invisible to the naked eye. Despite the size of these corvettes - coming in at a length of 485m identical to a UNSC Halberd-class light destroyer (albeit at 2.8x the mass) - they are still capable of carrying dropships and space fighters.

Armaments

Makar-pattern ships are primarily stealth ships, and as such they were not as well-armed as the larger Ceudar-pattern heavy corvette. They boast four Melusean-pattern heavy plasma cannons to the Ceudar's six, alongside a single Arkan-pattern plasma beam emitter as a primary weapon.

Ships of the line

• The Lookout – Formerly Infinite Fire while serving the Covenant, currently serving the Swords of Sanghelios and reestablishing contact with lost human colonies.

Operational history

Makar-pattern corvettes were introduced into Covenant naval service during the Third Age of Reclamation. They were rarely encountered by United Nations Space Command forces during the Human-Covenant War, instead primarily serving as a support role within the fleets of the Covenant. Thanks to their powerful stealth technologies, Makars were used to silently trail behind Covenant fleets and watch for signs of disobedience or disloyalty, as well as utilising their Luminaries to locate Forerunner artefacts of strategic value.

After the war's close, the Makar-pattern light corvette The Lookout was crewed by a joint crew of Sangheili, Unggoy, and humans as part of an arrangement between the Swords of Sanghelios and the Unified Earth Government to reestablish contact with colonies cut off by the war. In 2553, The Lookout arrived at the human colony of Losing Hand, along with the crew of the cargo tender UNSC Dark Was the Night that had crashed there a year earlier. Major Kyle Stallock, who was stationed aboard The Lookout, updated Dark Was the Night's crew on everything that had happened since their crash. The local population and the ship's crew were offered a way off the planet; some accepted while others remained.

Production notes

The as-of-yet unidentified Covenant stealth ship that first appears in the novel Halo: The Fall of Reach is identified as a DAV-class light corvette in the original Halo Encyclopedia. However, this is a mistake, as the stealth ship was described as being significantly smaller than the UNSC Iroquois, a Halberd-class light destroyer that is approximately the same length as a DAV-class light corvette. This error is carried over into Halo: Fall of Reach, a comic adaption of the novel that depicts the stealth ship as a corvette the same size as Iroquois.

List of appearances

• Halo: Fractures
  • Breaking Strain (First appearance)