Mothballed and due to be scrapped like the remainder of the Halcyon-class, the Autumn was reactivated during the Human-Covenant War. Under the command of Captain Jacob Keyes, she was to serve as an inconspicuous launch pad for a covert offensive involving locating the Covenant homeworld and capture of Covenant leadership by SPARTAN-II supersoldiers and received a refit to prepare her for the upcoming operation. The refit rectified a number of deficiencies in the original design and made her a competitive re-addition to the sorely pressed UNSC Navy. At the time of her destruction in 2552 she was 43 years old. A vessel, identified to be the Pillar of Autumn, pushes through the Covenant blockade and escapes Reach.
The Pillar of Autumn was ultimately unable to embark on the aforementioned operation due to action at the Battle of Reach and was one of the few ships to escape the disaster, albeit with moderate damage and the loss of a third of its tech staff. Although the Cole Protocol demanded a random Slipstream jump, the AI Cortana, without the knowledge of the crew, purposely guided the ship to the planet Threshold based on map coordinates extracted from a Forerunner artifact. The result was the discovery of Installation 04, or "Halo".
The Pillar of Autumn taking plasma impacts at the Battle of Installation 04.
A brief and uneven battle against a Covenant battle group of a dozen superior CCS-class Battlecruisers in near-Threshold space. Described by Cortana's and Captain Keyes' exchange: (Keyes:) "Damn. I don't see how we even stood a chance in the first place." (Cortana:) A dozen Covenant cruisers against a single Halcyon-II class ship- by those odds we still had three- (pauses, thinks.) make that four kills." Even so, the orbital battle resulted in critical damage being inflicted upon the Pillar of Autumn. Enemy boarding parties disabled the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon's fire control with a demolition charge, but not before she made a good account of herself by destroying four enemy warships and damaging several others. The Pillar of Autumn's survival against superior forces was due in part to a Prophet's directive to disable, rather than destroy her, out of fear that her destruction might harm "Halo", which had religious significance to the Covenant. The ship was then crash landed onto "Halo" by one of Cortana's subroutines. The vessel, damaged beyond repair, tore a deep gash in the ground for several hundred meters, bounced, then came to rest upright and balanced over a cliff on a barren peninsula. Prior to the crash much of her crew had taken to the escape pods, including Cortana who was being carried within the Master Chiefs suit. Others evacuated by Pelican dropship or even in drop pods, as was the case for a complement of ODSTs. Despite the confusion most of the crew survived to reach "Halo" and engage Covenant ground forces.
Later, Pelicans were employed to retrieve munitions from the crashed ship to sustain this effort. The human forces successfully neutralized the Covenant vehicles and some of the infantry stationed at the crash site and retrieved weaponry and vehicles to use in their guerrilla war against the Covenant.
Despite the abuse sustained during the space battle and the following crash the Pillar of Autumn remained intact, and was subsequently occupied by investigating Covenant forces and later by Flood. The threat posed by the latter was deemed sufficiently great for SPARTAN-117 and Cortana to detonate the ship's still-functioning fusion power cores in a bid to destroy "Halo", thus preventing the Flood from escaping.
Having manually triggered a destabilization of the power cores, SPARTAN-117 and Cortana commandeered a Longsword from one of the Pillar of Autumn's docking bays and achieved a safe minimum distance before the ship exploded, causing the ring-world to fragment. Its memory lives on for years to come as says doctor Halsey in ghosts of onyx.
The Pillar of Autumn was ultimately unable to embark on the aforementioned operation due to action at the Battle of Reach and was one of the few ships to escape the disaster, albeit with moderate damage and the loss of a third of its tech staff. Although the Cole Protocol demanded a random Slipstream jump, the AI Cortana, without the knowledge of the crew, purposely guided the ship to the planet Threshold based on map coordinates extracted from a Forerunner artifact. The result was the discovery of Installation 04, or "Halo".
The Pillar of Autumn taking plasma impacts at the Battle of Installation 04.
A brief and uneven battle against a Covenant battle group of a dozen superior CCS-class Battlecruisers in near-Threshold space. Described by Cortana's and Captain Keyes' exchange: (Keyes:) "Damn. I don't see how we even stood a chance in the first place." (Cortana:) A dozen Covenant cruisers against a single Halcyon-II class ship- by those odds we still had three- (pauses, thinks.) make that four kills." Even so, the orbital battle resulted in critical damage being inflicted upon the Pillar of Autumn. Enemy boarding parties disabled the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon's fire control with a demolition charge, but not before she made a good account of herself by destroying four enemy warships and damaging several others. The Pillar of Autumn's survival against superior forces was due in part to a Prophet's directive to disable, rather than destroy her, out of fear that her destruction might harm "Halo", which had religious significance to the Covenant. The ship was then crash landed onto "Halo" by one of Cortana's subroutines. The vessel, damaged beyond repair, tore a deep gash in the ground for several hundred meters, bounced, then came to rest upright and balanced over a cliff on a barren peninsula. Prior to the crash much of her crew had taken to the escape pods, including Cortana who was being carried within the Master Chiefs suit. Others evacuated by Pelican dropship or even in drop pods, as was the case for a complement of ODSTs. Despite the confusion most of the crew survived to reach "Halo" and engage Covenant ground forces.
Later, Pelicans were employed to retrieve munitions from the crashed ship to sustain this effort. The human forces successfully neutralized the Covenant vehicles and some of the infantry stationed at the crash site and retrieved weaponry and vehicles to use in their guerrilla war against the Covenant.
Despite the abuse sustained during the space battle and the following crash the Pillar of Autumn remained intact, and was subsequently occupied by investigating Covenant forces and later by Flood. The threat posed by the latter was deemed sufficiently great for SPARTAN-117 and Cortana to detonate the ship's still-functioning fusion power cores in a bid to destroy "Halo", thus preventing the Flood from escaping.
Having manually triggered a destabilization of the power cores, SPARTAN-117 and Cortana commandeered a Longsword from one of the Pillar of Autumn's docking bays and achieved a safe minimum distance before the ship exploded, causing the ring-world to fragment. Its memory lives on for years to come as says doctor Halsey in ghosts of onyx.
The Pillar of Autumn was refitted with an improved nuclear fusion engine that featured two smaller reactors around a larger one, capable of boosting power out by 300%. An upgraded cooling system was also retrofitted, featuring "a laser-induced optical slurry of ions chilled to near-absolute zero" that removed the reliance on expendable chemical temperature-control agents. In essence, the new system provided increased waste heat removal as power output increased. This self-regulating and self-cooling system was critical in combat since it virtually eliminated a commander's concerns about overheating and slagging a ship's engines. [edit] Armament
The upgraded Pillar of Autumn received several refits, including several to its weapons systems. Eventually, it was host to a very powerful armament.
One MAC Cannon which was capable of firing three consecutive shots on one charge each 600 tons.
300 Archer Missile Pods which were arranged in thirty columns and ten rows. Each pod contained 26 individual devices, equaling 7800 missiles[5].
Four Shiva Nuclear Warheads, one of which is loaded on a remote-controlled Longsword interceptor.
Forty 50mm Autocannons for point defense against single ships. These cannons were later scavenged by the surviving humans on Installation 04 for Alpha Base.
Three HAVOK Nuclear Warheads
[edit] Engine Room
The Pillar of Autumn's engine room, or just "Engineering", was a large, three-deck high chamber allowing access to the fusion engine core. Side passages allowed for movement from the bottom deck all the way up to the catwalks on the third. The manifolds into the cores were suspended above the second deck. Controls on the third retracted these manifolds, exposing a vent that led directly into the core. It was using this method to expose the core via the vents that the Master Chief ultimately destroyed the ship and "Halo". This room is the largest room in the Pillar of Autumn with the exception of the hanger bay.
The Pillar of Autumn
Cortana, the AI, found aboard the PoA
The crashed Autumn in the Desert of Halo
Crewmembers in the "Autumn"
[edit] Airlocks
Airlock 31: The Lifeboat of this airlock was destroyed by the Covenant to make way for a Boarding Craft.
Airlock 32: The Lifeboat of this airlock was destroyed by the Covenant to make way for a Boarding Craft.
Airlock 51: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel, but was destroyed by unseen Covenant artillery.
Airlock 52: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel.
Airlock 53: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel.
Airlock 61: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel with the Master Chief, Cortana and 9 other Marines onboard.
Airlock 62: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel.
Airlock 63: The Lifeboat of this airlock managed to make it out of the vessel.
[edit] Known Crew
[edit] Pillar of Autumn Command Crew
Captain Jacob Keyes -- Ship Captain
Cortana -- Former ship AI
Unknown backup AI, Most likely Wellsley
Lieutenant Dominique -- Communications Officer
Lieutenant Aki Hikowa -- Weapons Officer
Lieutenant Hall -- Operations Officer
Ensign William Michael Lovell -- Navigation Officer
Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy -- Chief Engineer
Crewman Abiad
Crewman Wang
Crewman Singh
[edit] Other Naval Personnel
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
Tech Chief Thom Shephard -- Cryogenics Technician
Tech Officer First Class Mary Murphy -- Air Traffic Technician
Tech Officer Sam Marcus -- Cryogenics Technician
Petty Officer Third Class Pauley -- Radio Technician
Petty Officer Third Class Cho -- Radio Technician
Flight Officer Captain Carol "Foehammer" Rawley -- Pelican Pilot-Echo 419
Lieutenant "Cookie" Peterson -- Pelican Pilot
Lieutenant Rick Hale -- Pelican Pilot
Flight Officer Mitchell -- Pelican Pilot
Warrant Officer Shiela Polaski -- Pelican Pilot
Lieutenant Frye -- Pelican Co-Pilot
Crew Chief Cullen -- Pelican Communications Officer
Lieutenant Haverson
[edit] Marines and ODSTs
[edit] Individuals
Major Antonio Silva
First Lieutenant Melissa McKay
Second Lieutenant Dalu
Second Lieutenant Oros
Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto
Master Sergeant Lister
Company Sergeant Tink Carter
Sergeant Corly
Sergeant Major Avery J. Johnson
Sergeant Parker
Sergeant Pete Stacker
Gunnery Sergeant Waller
Private First Class M. Fitzgerald
Private Bisenti
Private First Class Hosky
Private First Class Wallace A. Jenkins
Corporal Locklear
Corporal Lovik
Corporal Wilkins
Lance Corporal "Snaky" Jones
Medic "Doc" Valdez
Private Kappus
Private Chips Dubbo
Private Manuel Mendoza
Private O'Brien
Private Marie Postly
Private Riley
Private Satha
Al-Thani
Dawkins
Mary Murphy
Suzuki
Unnamed Corporal
[edit] Units
830 Marines-1 ODST Battalion, 1 Marine Battalion
Combat Team Alpha
Combat Team November
Combat Team Sierra
Combat Team Victor
Fire Team Charlie
Fire Team Zulu
Fourteenth Platoon
Twenty-Second Tactical
[edit] Others
SPARTAN-058 (Unconscious in Cryo Pod)
Jonesy (Crew member's cat)
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