COALMINER is the alias of an ONI operative involved in highly-classified ONI missions, and one of the few entrusted with the knowledge of the SPARTAN-III Program.
Biography
The earliest mention of COALMINER is 2532, where a message to Codename: SURGEON concerning the S-IIIs, COALMINER noted the early stages of preparing Alpha Company were progressing satisfactorily and expressed confidence in Kurt-051's training regimen.[1]
In 2552, COALMINER detected Cortana's intrusion into the the ONI database 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 Reach Station Gamma's database to minimize the damage.[2]
This later caused difficulties during the Fall of Reach as it prevented the AI Doppler from erasing the Circumference's NAV database as per the Cole Protocol. A SPARTAN-II team had to deploy to destroy the ship and suffered casualties in the process. This may, however, have effectively saved John 117 and humanity, as John 117 may have died or been trapped on the planet, and would not have taken part in the destruction of Installation 04. This may have also saved the lives of many other notable characters, such as Sergeant Johnson and Cortana.
Sources
- ^ Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, chapter 7
- ^ Halo: The Fall of Reach, pages 281-282