Self-destruct

There is more information available on this subject at Self-destruct on the English Wikipedia.

Cortana starts the countdown for the self-destruct as John-117 looks on aboard the UNSC Pillar of Autumn.

The self-destruct is an integrated mechanism present in starships and UNSC military bases and is used to cause a massive explosion to completely destroy itself in order to prevent vital navigational data and strategically-valuable information from falling into enemy Covenant clutches, as per paragraph five of the Cole Protocol.

Examples

UNSC Prophecy

Severely damaged during the Harvest campaign, the UNSC Prophecy was boarded by teams from the UNSC Spirit of Fire to purge its navigation database as per the Cole Protocol. After Sergeant John Forge succeeded in purging the navigation database, the ship's self-destruct was initiated by its AI FitzGibbon to keep the ship out of Covenant hands.

UNSC Pillar of Autumn

Towards the end of the Battle of Installation 04, Cortana and Spartan John-117 were forced to activate the UNSC Pillar of Autumn's self-destruct sequence in an effort to prevent the Flood parasite from getting off of Installation 04, and particularly keeping 343 Guilty Spark from firing the Halo and wiping out all sentient life within a radius of 25,000 lightyears. Cortana and Master Chief's plan would have successfully worked had not Guilty Spark aborted the self-destruct sequence, and as Cortana was unable to reactivate the countdown, so the Chief proposed using explosives to cause the fusion reactors to go critical and explode, thereby destroying the ring.

Fermion

Fermion self-destructs as several Covenant ships pass nearby.

The UNSC Remote Scanning Outpost Fermion was forced to enact paragraph five of the Cole Protocol and had to flood the station's reactors with deuterium, causing a critical overload in order to destroy the station's science library, which was offline for repairs.

UNSC The Heart of Midlothian

When the destroyer UNSC The Heart of Midlothian was captured and boarded by the Covenant, the ship's AI, Mo Ye, told Sergeant Michael Baird to go to the bridge to reconnect Mo Ye to the rest of herself and the ship in order to enable the self-destruct and destroy the ship along with its data and all the Covenant aboard. The Heart of Midlothian's self-destruct occurred by shaped nuclear charges detonating inward and igniting the fissionable material in the ship's reactor, causing a greater explosion that destroyed the surrounding Covenant ships.

Pilgrims Pride

In March 2558, the UNSC Infinity found the damaged freighter, Pilgrims Pride, leaking atomic matter with faint life signs aboard. Infinity tugged the ship into one of its deployment bays. An ambush was sprung within the bay when the freighter set itself to self-destruct and multiple UNSC aircraft exited its cargo bay. Fireteam Majestic was deployed along with Fireteams Colossus and Fenrir to repel the attack and prevent the freighter from self-destructing inside the Infinity. The ship was ejected from the Infinity and exploded in space some distance away.

Failed attempts

UNSC In Amber Clad

Cortana attempted to blow the engines of the UNSC In Amber Clad in an effort to stop the Flood and to keep the Covenant from firing Installation 05, but was kept from doing so when the Gravemind captured her.

Gallery

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  Self-destruct reference between armed and disarmed self-destruct.

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  Self-destruct sequence initiated reference.

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  Self-destruct sequence aborted reference.

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  Cortana initiates the self-destruct countdown in Halo: Combat Evolved.

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  343 Guilty Spark aborts the self-destruct sequence, Cortana unable to reactivate it, in Halo: Combat Evolved.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (First appearance)
• Halo: Combat Evolved
• Halo: The Flood
• Halo: First Strike
• Halo 2
• Halo Evolutions
  • Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian
• Halo: Fall of Reach
  • Invasion
• Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
• Halo: Escalation
• Halo 2: Anniversary