Codename: COALMINER

This article's title is a callsign, an alias, or a nickname, as no proper name for the subject has been revealed.

COALMINER is the alias of an Office of Naval Intelligence operative involved in highly classified missions, namely Operation: HYPODERMIC. Given their rather frequent correspondence, COALMINER's handler may be Codename: SURGEON.

Biography

Human-Covenant War

COALMINER's earliest known activity was in 2532. In a message to Codename: SURGEON concerning the SPARTAN-III Program, COALMINER noted the early stages of preparing Alpha Company were progressing satisfactorily and expressed confidence in Kurt-051's training regimen.

In 2552, COALMINER detected an intrusion into the ONI databases at Reach. While COALMINER failed to identify the intruder, the intrusion threatened to compromise HYPODERMIC. COALMINER informed SURGEON of the breach and deleted the UNSC Circumference from Gamma Station's database to minimize the damage.

This caused difficulties during the latter stages of the Fall of Reach as it prevented the AI Doppler from erasing the Circumference's NAV database in accordance with the Cole Protocol. A SPARTAN-II team was deployed to destroy the ship and suffered casualties in the process. In an indirect manner, this lapse in security inadvertently saved humanity: in the wake of the mission to Gamma Station, John-117 traveled to Halo Installation 04 aboard the Template:UNSCship, which set about the final stages of the Human-Covenant War.

Post-war

At a later date, COALMINER received series of four reports from SURGEON discussing the state of the post-war galaxy. In the introduction, SURGEON pondered how humanity would adapt after three decades of ceaseless war. The first report provided intelligence on three of the Covenant's former client races. The second report detailing the origins of the SPARTAN-IV Program and the Spartan branch.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Fall of Reach (First mentioned)
• Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Fall of Reach - Invasion