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Orbital defense platform

From Halopedia, the Halo wiki

Orbital defense platform
H2A CairoStation Loadscreen.png
Production information

Role:

Defensive weapons platform

Technical specifications

Length:

Variable

Width:

Variable

Height:

Variable

Mass:

Variable

Armament:

Complement:

UNSC Marines, Naval crewmen

Chronological and affiliation

Era:

Human-Covenant War

Affiliation:

UNSC Air Force

 

"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.[2]

Orbital defense platform[3] (ODP),[4] also known as an orbital weapon platform,[2] 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.[5] 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 Covenant boarding craft 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.[2]

Specifications

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.[6]

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 4% the speed of light,[7][8][Note 1] ensuring the complete annihilation of the target.[6] 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.[2] The weapon is vulnerable to the detonation of nuclear weapons, as their superconductive coils could be burned out from their electromagnetic pulse.[9]

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.[10]

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 twenty ODPs. At least one of these platforms was in place by May 2517;[11] a number were online by 2527.[12] 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.[13]

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.[14] By October 2552, some 300 ODPs were operational.[6] 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.[2] The ODPs were used throughout the drawn-out Battle for Earth after more Covenant fleets began to arrive in the following days and weeks,[15] 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.[16][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.[18]

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

  • H2-CairoStation-MAC-ODP.png

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

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

    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

Main-Superintendent.png 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

List of appearances

Notes

  1. ^ While the Halo Encyclopedia lists the velocity as 40% the speed of light, the figure remains unchanged in the reissue of The Fall of Reach, a more recent source.

Sources

  1. ^ Halo: Official Spartan Field Manual, p. 136-138
  2. ^ a b c d e f Halo 2, campaign level, Cairo Station
  3. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, p. 330
  4. ^ Halo Encyclopedia, p. 294 (2011)
  5. ^ a b Halo Waypoint: Canon Fodder - Looking Glassed
  6. ^ a b c Halo 2, campaign level, The Armory
  7. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, p. 283
  8. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach (2010 edition), p. 320
  9. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, Chapter 34
  10. ^ Halo: Warfleet – An Illustrated Guide to the Spacecraft of Halo - p. 30 & 31
  11. ^ Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp
  12. ^ Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, p. 50
  13. ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach
  14. ^ Halo: First Strike, p. 104
  15. ^ Halo Legendary Crate - Data Drop #2
  16. ^ Halo 3, campaign level, Crow's Nest
  17. ^ Halo 2, campaign level The Great Journey
  18. ^ Halo 4, campaign level, Midnight
  19. ^ Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp

v • d • e
 
Human ship classifications
Stealth craft
Heavy frigates Paris-class • Strident-class
Light frigates Anlace-class • Charon-class • Mulsanne-class • Stalwart-class
Heavy destroyers Able-class • Hillsborough-class
Light destroyers Diligence-class • Halberd-class • Unidentified
Heavy cruisers Autumn-class • Marathon-class • Valiant-class
Light cruisers Halcyon-class
Unclassified
By human faction: UEG (UNSC • CAA) • Insurrectionist
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