Luminary

A Luminary.

"A Luminary does not lie."

— A Holy Writ of the Covenant, as quoted by Chur'R.

A Luminary is a Forerunner device designed to scan for and identify Forerunner relics. The Covenant reverse-engineered their own Luminaries, modeled and sculpted after an original Forerunner device recovered from the Covenant-controlled Supernal Spiral-class keyship, Anodyne Spirit.

Overview

Luminaries are Forerunner devices capable of detecting technology and artefacts left by the long-dead civilisation. When used, they are capable of scanning an entire planet, identifying signatures of suspected Forerunner relics and assigning them with various glyphs.

Design details

There are several different forms of Luminary. The original designs were created by the Forerunners, and are considered holy artefacts within themselves; they are the greatest Luminaries, and were jealously guarded by the Covenant's leaders and rarely allowed to leave High Charity. These devices (the earliest being the one found aboard Anodyne Spirit) were reverse-engineered by the Covenant to serve as the basis for Covenant-built Luminaries, which are mass-distributed as a mandatory piece of equipment on all Covenant starships. However, the security of the Luminary is paramount; as such, during the Human-Covenant War they were covered by a piece of Covenant scripture recalled by Kip Silas as named something akin to the "Writ of Security" or "Writ of Sanctity". Under the Writ, Covenant soldiers were ordered to prevent sacred objects (including Luminaries) from falling into human hands - with the Luminary's destruction a priority should a Covenant ship be at risk of being boarded and captured by human troops.

Standardised Covenant-issue Luminary models are shaped like a series of three silver pyramids: two smaller ones supporting an upside down, larger one in the center. The Luminary is connected to a given vessel's communications systems, with a given shipmaster required to report its findings to the vessel's controlling organisation (such as a sponsor ministry). As such, should a given shipmaster wish to steal the relics on a given planet for their own gain, they must first disconnect the Luminary from the communications systems, then reactivate it once they have taken their share - ensuring the Luminary reports a consistent number of relics. However, tampering with Luminaries is a serious crime under Covenant law, and punishable by death or worse.

Alongside the detection of Forerunner technology, Luminaries are notable for also detecting humans and registering them as Forerunner technology. This was the initial catalyst for the Human-Covenant War, and spurred Mendicant Bias' revelation that humans were the reclaimers designated to inherit the legacy of the Forerunners. The Hierarchs covered up this knowledge in an effort to prevent the empire from breaking apart in civil war, though the Prophet of Truth noted that the Luminaries' ability to detect humans was not a hindrance, but in fact a help. By so reliably detecting the presence of humans, it would make the Covenant's mission to wipe out the entire species much easier.

History

A Luminary depicting the Halo Array.

The Luminary aboard Anodyne Spirit was used by the San'Shyuum Reformists during their exodus from Janjur Qom. During the War of Beginnings, it was used by the Reformists to locate valuable relics, which ultimately put them into conflict with the Sangheili and resulted in battles such as the battle on Anvarl.

After the end of the war and the formation of the Covenant, the San'Shyuum continued to experiment with Anodyne Spirit's Luminary. By attempting to copy it, they were drawn to the gas giant Te in the Svir system, relatively close to Sanghelios. The Luminary detected a trove of relics in the system only to find the remnants of a Forerunner space station that had been eaten by the Lekgolo worms. This ultimately led to the Lekgolo joining the Covenant, after being "tamed" by Arbiter Jeht 'Lcmutee.

For much of their history, the Covenant attempted to acquire new Forerunner Luminaries. In 850 BCE, Mken Scre'ah'ben led a mission back to Janjur Qom in an attempt to recover a Luminary believed to reside on the San'Shyuum homeworld. However, the Luminary - thought to contain the location of the Halo Array - was lost when the dropship carrying it, Vengeful Vitality, was attacked and destroyed.

Role in starting the Human-Covenant War

Luminaries were instrumental in the outbreak of war between humanity and the Covenant. The first detection of humanity by a Luminary was by that aboard the Kig-Yar missionary vessel Minor Transgression, which initially drew the vessel to the colony world of Harvest, claiming to have detected millions of Forerunner relics. In reality, the Luminary had detected the presence of millions of humans on Harvest's surface, though this fact remained unknown to Minor Transgression's crew. Shipmistress Chur'R intially severed the Luminary from the ship's communication systems in the hopes of skimming some of the relics from the find to sell on the black market. The Kig-Yar attempted to board the freighter This End Up to steal its cargo of "relics" but ultimately found nothing. While later boarding a second freighter, the Luminary aboard Minor Transgression was reconnected to the signals equipment by the Unggoy Deacon Dadab, resulting in the Luminary transmitting its findings to the Ministry of Tranquility. While Minor Transgression was ultimately self-destructed by Chur'R, the information discovered by its Luminary was passed to Minister of Fortitude and Vice-Minister of Tranquility, who used the information to begin plotting their ascension to Hierarch. The Vice-Minister dispatched the Jiralhanae-crewed vessel Rapid Conversion to investigate the find, with the ship reporting back that not only had it detected relics, but even an Oracle.

The two San'Shyuum brought the Luminations to the Philologist aboard Anodyne Spirit, with the hopes of presenting them to Mendicant Bias - the dormant Metarch-class ancilla that had silently inhabited the vessel for millennia. While discussing the findings, Mendicant Bias awoke for the first time in living memory, noting that the Covenant had misinterpreted the Luminary;s sign as "Reclamation", rather than the actual translation "Reclaimer" - and that the symbol represented the ancilla's makers. The revelation that humanity were connected to the Forerunners disturbed the trio of San'Shyuum present, resulting in the realisation that were the news to spread, it could be the undoing of the empire. As such, they endeavoured to blackmail their way into becoming Hierarchs, with the goal of steering the Covenant on a new path - the complete and total genocide of humanity. At their ascension to the throne, the newly-crowned Prophet of Truth noted that he had covered up the lie by claiming that the glassing of Harvest was the result of humanity's attempt to destroy the relics on their world, and a potent of what they would do to the Halo Array, were they to find it. Using this as a casus belli, the Covenant declared war, and began to use Luminaries to find humans and hunt them down. This event began the thirty-year war that would ultimately culminate in the Great Schism and the empire's collapse into disparate warlord states.

Use in the war

During the Human-Covenant War, Covenant commanders used Luminaries to both hunt down humans and uncover new Forerunner relics. In the early war, a delay in installing Luminaries on newly-constructed ships resulted in an edict being issued by the Prophet of Truth dictating that on each vessel lacking a Luminary, one in 64 Unggoy were to be executed by Kig-Yar death squads, with choice of executee done by a Sangheili overseer. This practice would continue daily for every ship until a Luminary was installed.

Makar-pattern light corvettes were installed with Luminaries as standard and used as scouts with the purpose of both locating Forerunner artefacts and keeping a watchful eye over their own fleet for signs of disloyalty.

Upon his promotion to Supreme Commander, Rho 'Barutamee was entrusted with a rare Forerunner-built Luminary with which to use as part of his fleet's duties as a long-ranged scout for the empire. Rho hoped to use his Luminary to eventually uncover Maethrillian, the long-lost capital of the Forerunner Ecumene; however, it ended up ultimately leading him to the Beta Eridani system, and ultimately Reach itself - beginning the climactic Fall of Reach.

In 2551, Covenant forces under the Prophet of Regret's command discovered a Luminary on Meridian cataloguing the astrogration data for the entire Halo array, the Ark, and the network of slipspace portals connecting to it. Choosing the closest portal, Regret ordered the Fleet of Sacred Consecration to head to a planet known as Erde-Tyrene, unaware that Erde-Tyrene was actually humanity's homeworld, Earth. Regret sought to outdo his fellow Hierarchs by claiming the monumental discovery for himself, but ultimately found himself overrun and quickly routed.

Post-war use

The UNSC developed the VECTOR-class Mjolnir armor based on Covenant technology, for Spartan-IVs to commune with Luminaries. This was notably used to seek artifacts among the debris of Alpha Halo on Basis. The UNSC also installed a Luminary alongside a Covenant hyperscanner aboard UNSC Infinity.

The high rate of Luminary destruction (both by hostile action and Covenant self-destruction) in the Human-Covenant War means that they are a rare prize for post-war scavengers, with Rion Forge considering acquiring one her ticket to an early retirement.

Non-canon and dubious canon appearances

Silver Timeline

This article contains information about the Silver Timeline, and is not a part of the established Halo canon.

As a child, Makee was discovered on Oban by two Sangheili warriors who were using a Luminary to search for a Forerunner artifact. Instead, the Luminary proved to be leading them to Makee herself, a Reclaimer.

Gallery

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  A Luminary found on Meridian.

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  Stewards present a Luminary.

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  A Luminary in Halo: The Television Series.

List of appearances

• Halo: Contact Harvest (First appearance)
• Halo Wars (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Broken Circle
• Halo 2: Anniversary
  • Terminals
• Halo: Fleet Battles
• Halo 5: Guardians (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Shadow of Intent (Mentioned only)
• Halo Mythos (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Smoke and Shadow
• Halo: Renegades
• Halo: The Television Series
  • Emergence
  • Reckoning