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Sarcophagus

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Revision as of 13:07, September 18, 2016 by Necrontir (talk | contribs) (→‎Joint research)
Sarcophagus
General overview

Description:

Dyson shell with a terrestrial surface

Location:

Zeta Doradus system

  • Formerly within a slipspace field in Onyx
Operation overview

Type:

Shield world

Function:

Preservation of lifeforms from the Halo Array's pulse

Structural information

Diameter:

Approx. 2 AU (300,000,000 km)

Surface area:

Approx. 255 quadrillion km2

Mass:

1.37 solar masses[1]

 

ONI Research Facility Trevelyan[2] (ONIRF Trevelyan), commonly known simply as Trevelyan and named by its Forerunner creators as Shield World 006[3] or the Sharpened Shield,[4] is a Forerunner shield world formerly located within the artificial planet Onyx in the Zeta Doradus system; because of this, the shield world is often also called simply Onyx.[5]

At approximately two astronomical units in diameter and weighing approximately 1.37 solar masses,[1] the sphere is the largest known megastructure created by the Forerunners, and possibly the largest artificial structure in the galaxy. It was appropriated in March 2553 by the United Nations Space Command and renamed in honor of the late Kurt Trevelyan.[2] By April 2554, the sphere had come to house the joint UNSC-Swords of Sanghelios Onyx United Research Project and contained a growing settlement with a population in the thousands.[5]

History

File:HM-MendezHalsey.png
Mendez, Halsey, and a Spartan-III inside the shield world.

Early history and battle

The most technologically impressive of all shield worlds encountered in the modern era, Shield World 006 was constructed as part of the Didact's shield world defensive plan before the Forerunner-Flood war. This shield installation in particular was designed as a fallout shelter from the Halo Array, a competing strategy advocated by the Builders. Several slipspace portals on the interior of the structure were linked to major Forerunner worlds, in order to facilitate their evacuation before the Array fired; one such world was Kelekos.

Near the end of the Battle of Onyx on November 3, 2552, Covenant Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree led his forces in an attempt to access the Sharpened Shield. However, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose detonated a pair of FENRIS nuclear warheads within the core room antechamber after his comrades had passed through the portal, denying the Covenant access.[6] The human survivors; Dr. Catherine Halsey, Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez; Spartan-IIs Linda-058, Kelly-087, and Fred-104; and Spartan-IIIs Lucy-B091, Tom-B292, Ash-G099, Olivia-G291, and Mark-G313, were then seemingly trapped within the shield world. Shortly thereafter, the installation's Sentinels destroyed the artificial surface of Onyx.[7] All that remained in realspace was a 23-centimeter orb around Zeta Doradus.[8]

When inside the shield world, the human survivors eventually managed to establish contact between the ONI ships outside the sphere, which had already detected the cyclically fluctuating anomaly caused by the slipspace bubble but had no means to access it.[1] In February 2553,[9] the shield world was brought back into normal space by a group of Huragok that the Forerunners had left behind to maintain the structure. There was a considerable difference in the passage of time between the slipspace bubble and real space; while the survivors inside the sphere had only experienced several days, approximately three months had passed on the outside.

Emergence from slipspace and ONI takeover

Once the Sharpened Shield had been brought back into normal space, the ONI team Kilo-Five entered the sphere. A strip of multi-colored lights activated to guide their dropship to the designated coordinates, where they would land on the surface of the shell. After a momentary blackness and a disorienting sensation for the occupants, they found themselves and their ship inside the Sarcophagus facility's hangar.[10] Halsey, Mendez and the surviving Spartans were then rescued from the shield world, but the doctor was immediately arrested by Captain Serin Osman for "committing acts likely to aid the enemy".

Immediately afterward, ONI established a base of operations near the access portal to the sphere,[2] which was named "Trevelyan" in honor of Kurt-051, whose sacrifice allowed humanity to access it.[9] ONI's research facility was used to gather information on the vast installation, as well as to obtain usable Forerunner technologies.

Days later, the former Shipmaster Jul 'Mdama, detained by Kilo-Five, was placed in captivity on Trevelyan at the behest of Dr. Irena Magnusson in order to use him in ONI's experiments; however, several days later, the Sangheili escaped via a local slipspace portal. The incident resulted in ONI commander-in-chief Admiral Margaret Parangosky personally relieving Dr. Magnusson of duty and replacing her with Hugo Barton as the facility's director.[11]

Joint research

Main article: Onyx United Research Project

By March 2554, the shield world's fledgling research facility had undergone major changes, having become a combined effort between the UNSC and the Swords of Sanghelios. A settlement known as Paxopolis had been established in the sphere and was steadily growing, primarily housing researchers and their families. Franklin Mendez, former head instructor for the Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs, was appointed as the facility's head of security, alongside Sangheili Kasha 'Hilot. Shortly after March 30, 2554, Spartan-IIIs Lucy-B091 and Tom-B292 joined the security staff, serving directly under Mendez.[5]

By 2558 the facility housed a Spartan garrison of unknown size.[12]

Description

Shield World 006 is a Dyson shell, a massive artificial structure encircling a star. According to Dr. Catherine Halsey's calculations, the internal surface area of the sphere is approximately 500 million times the surface area of Earth, or around 255 quadrillion km2. When residing in a slipspace bubble of compressed dimensionality, the shield world's apparent diameter to an outside observer was only about 23 centimeters. Inside the slipspace bubble and in normal space, however, the sphere is approximately twice the size of Earth's orbit.[1] The exterior surface of the sphere is dark brown in color and is entirely featureless.[10][5]

The observed portion of the interior surface of Shield World 006 is rolling hills and verdant forest, with several Forerunner cities in between.[13] As the Forerunners never arrived, the shield world is entirely maintained by Huragok and Sentinels, including cylindrical drones tasked with monitoring for signs of Flood infection.[14] The Dyson sphere's default environmental conditions are suitable for Earth-based life, but the climate settings could be adjusted for other species' requirements.[15][4] The sky inside the shield world appears solid blue; the landscape on the other side of the sphere is not visible as a result of the shield world's enormous scale, unlike on smaller shield installations such as Shield 0459. However, the concave curvature of the horizon can be detected with a telescopic sight.[16]

There are two identified Forerunner facilities on the shield world. The Citadel is an urban habitat that served as the base camp for Blue Team for the majority of their time in the shield world.[17] Another section, known as the Sarcophagus, is essentially a garage filled with numerous Forerunner transports and vehicles.[18] The Sarcophagus also contained a control room. It was in this section that Lucy-B091 discovered several Huragok maintenance personnel, and successfully communicated with one of them. Numerous other structures are scattered around the landscape, including towers responsible for environmental maintenance and atmospheric control.[19] Some of the structures are home to slipspace portals which link not only to locations within the sphere, but also other worlds,[20] including Hesduros.[21] However, since the status of many of the facilities in the portals' receiving ends is unknown, travel through them was advised against by the Huragok.[22]

While contained in slipspace, access to the shield world could only be obtained through a small portal located inside an antechamber in the core of the artificial planet Onyx. The portal was only active for a limited amount of time after the Halo Array had been put into standby mode.[23][24] Some time after the portal had been deactivated, the Huragok crew transitioned the shield world back into normal space once they had been assured that there were no longer any threats to the shelter. In the process, the shield world enveloped the four inner planets of the Zeta Doradus system, which now orbit inside of it.[5]

Research

Following the establishment of the research facility, numerous discoveries of records and technology were made within the shield world. Significant finds included the Bornstellar Relation;[25][26] the remains of a Catalog carapace, (designated "Forerunner remains #879"), including the desiccated, malformed corpse within; a fossilized Juridical accompanied by a monitor with an account of the last days of the Forerunner-Flood war;[27] and the personal armor of a latter-day Forerunner Prefect.[28] All of these discoveries were studied extensively, with the Bornstellar Relation and the monitor's accounts giving a great deal of insight into Forerunner history and society. Matériel discovered on Trevelyan soon led to new technological developments, such as a variant of MJOLNIR (GEN2) that ONI's Watershed Division and local Huragok reverse-engineered from the Prefect's armor.[28]

Initially, one of the Trevelyan site's primary purposes was to experiment on genetically modifying the Sangheili grain known as irukan, with the goal of creating a bioweapon to be unleashed against the Sangheili as a backup plan in the event ONI's strategy to destabilize them failed. To accelerate the growth of the crops, ONI had the facility's resident Huragok create slipspace bubbles in which time passed faster than in normal space, much like the dimensional bubble the shield world itself used to inhabit.[29] With the advent of the Onyx United Research Project and the joint UNSC-Sangheili occupation of the sphere, the bioweapon project within the facility would presumably have been discontinued.[5]

Trivia

  • "The Sharpened Shield", a name used for the shield world in the Halo Encyclopedia, was originally a fan-made name used on Halopedia. The name had never been used in any official Halo media, though it was seemingly based on the line, "And bless the Reclaimers that may take refuge behind the sharpened edge of the Shield," from Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. For more information, see this discussion. In Halo: The Thursday War, the installation is identified as Shield World 006,[3] which more closely matches the naming scheme established in Halo: The Essential Visual Guide.
  • Collectively, the shield world's Forerunner and human designations are a reference to the James Bond film GoldenEye. Alec Trevelyan, the film's antagonist, is a former 00 agent; his code number was 006.

List of appearances

Sources

  1. ^ a b c d e Halo: Glasslands, page 230
  2. ^ a b c Halo: Glasslands, page 397
  3. ^ a b Halo: The Thursday War, page 120
  4. ^ a b Halo Encyclopedia, page 301 (2011 edition)
  5. ^ a b c d e f Halo: Fractures, "Lessons Learned"
  6. ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 372
  7. ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 378
  8. ^ Halo Mythos, page 134
  9. ^ a b Halo: Glasslands, page 372
  10. ^ a b Halo: Glasslands, page 378-379
  11. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, page 407
  12. ^ Halo 4, Defender armor description
  13. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, pages 271, 274
  14. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, page 272
  15. ^ Halo: Glasslands, page 271
  16. ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 380
  17. ^ Halo: Glasslands, page 280
  18. ^ Halo: Glasslands, page 190
  19. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, pages 273-275
  20. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, page 409
  21. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, page 398
  22. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, page 278
  23. ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, page 311
  24. ^ Halo: Glasslands, chapter 10
  25. ^ Halo: Silentium, page 12
  26. ^ Halo: Primordium, page 230
  27. ^ Halo: Silentium, Prologue
  28. ^ a b Worthplaying:' Halo 4' (X360) Champions Bundle To Add New Maps, Mode, Skins, Armor, Bonus Upgrades - Screens
  29. ^ Halo: The Thursday War, pages 138, 205

The Forerunners

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Neoteric array
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Installation components

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Other megastructures
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For a complete list, check out our Forerunner category.

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