The UNSC-Spirit of Fire out of Halo Wars has been through more than most UNSC ships, and that’s saying something.
It’s hard to overstate just how much the UNSC Spirit of Fire has been through. It’s fought not just one but two Halo Wars plus a countless nuber of spin-off novels and expanded universe details. It went missing, was assumed “lost with all hands” after becoming the first ship in human history to destroy a Forerunner Shield World. And then it reappeared to help save humanity; though once again it takes an army to equal one Master Chief.
Luckily, the Spirit of Fire is capable of carrying an army. Two armies, really. But what really makes it stand out, is that this ship was not originally designed for war. It began life as a colony ship during the UNSC’s early expansion period. It served as a civilian ship for almost fifty years before it was called back up for war with the Covenant.
UNSC Spirit Of Fire Design And Capabilities
The Spirit of Fire was a colony ship, but this proved to be advantageous in more ways than you might think when it was refitted for active combat duty. Manufactured by Halifax Spacewerx out of Luna, this Phoenix-class support vessel had a lot going for it. Starting with a massive Titanium-A armored hull, coming in with a mass of 44 million metric tons.
It was retrofitted with an array of three 22B6R3 Magnetic Accelerator Cannons to serve as its main weapons. As well as a suite of ten 11A2R1 naval coilgun batteries. For defense, it boasted a mere forty M800 Rampart point defense guns, and twenty-four M42 Archer missile pods.
But the deadliest weapon in its arsenal turns out to be the power of the troops it carried.. As a former colony ship, the UNSC Spirit of Fire had most of its colony equipment (terraforming engines, machineworks, etc.) removed and was left with massive storage bays.
This meant it could carry a truly outrageous complement of troops. Starting with somewhere around 6,000 UNSC Marines, including 1,000 ODST (and Booomerang Company) and the Hellbringer Infantry, as well as the Spartin-II Red Team, and a covert ops team known as The Ferrets.
Alongside the troops, the Spirit of Fire also carried several armored vehicles, including ten D20 Herons, six D96 Albatrosses, seventy D77 Pelicans, a number of D81 Condors and Gunships, B-65 Shortswords, AV-14 Horntes, AC-220 Vultures, AV-22 Sparrowhawks, D82 Darters, EV-44 Nightingales, YGGDRASIL Mark II Colossi, HRUNTING Mark III Cyclopes, YGGDRASIL Mark IX Mantises, Jackrabbits, M400 Kodiaks, Warthogs (Fireball, Flame, Chaingun, and Gauss variants), M312 Elephants, M808S/B Scorpions, M850 Grizzlies, M9 Wolverines, SP42 Cobras, XRP12 Gremlins, and drop pods enough to support a full deployment of its ODST forces.
And we woulde remiss not to mention Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, the ship’s infamous slipspace drive. Why, you ask?
From Colony Ship To Humanity’s Saviors
As mentioned, the Spirit of Fire began its life as a civilian ship until it was called up after civil unrest within the Unified Earth Government’s colonies began to bubble up, and colony ships were refitted with war to stomp out the fires of rebellion. However, before the Spirit of Fire could take up arms against the rebels, the Human-Covenant War began.
During the main thrust of the war, the Spirit of Fire took part in the Harvest Campaign as part of Battlegroup D. In the aftermath, the colony ship was used to evacuate civilians from the planet Arcadia, when it set out in pursuit of the flagship of Arbiter Ripa ‘Moramee, to rescue the captured Professor Anders.
As frequently happens in these types of reckless pursuit, things quickly went awry. Both the Arbiter’s flagship and the Spirit of Fire were quickly pulled into conflict upon a Forerunner Shield World, laden with a fleet of Sojourner-class Dreadnoughts.
In order to prevent the Covenant from taking over the warships and bringing them to bear against the forces of humanity, the crew of the Spirit of Fire took drastic action. The Shaw-Fujikawa slipspace drive was converted into a bomb, and Sergeant John Forge detonated it inside the Shield World’s artificial sun, destroying the Forerunner complex/world, but leaving the ship stranded with only its sublight drives to navigate by.
Stranded, but not Banished
The ship was adrift for 28 years. In the ensuing time, the Spirit of Fire was assumed “lost with all hands”. But that is not what happened – at some point in 2559, the Spirit of Fire was drawn through a slipspace portal and arrived at orbit above the infamous Installation 00.
As the crew awakened from cryo-sleep, they discovered that they were drawn into another major conflict, this time with Atriox and his Banished. As the ship’s ground teams fought the Banished, the Spirit of Fire found itself outmatched by the CAS-class assault carrier Enduring Conviction, however the new shipboard AI Isabel (rescued from Installation 00), was able to outwit the superior ship and bring it down.
As the conflict for the Ark heated up, the Spirit of Fire was pulled into conflict after conflict, ultimately destroying the facility responsible for firing the Halo Array (wiping out all organic life in the galaxy) and continuing to stymie the Banished at every turn.
Though !the ship suffered great losses, it’s safe to say that the Spirit of Fire has collectively done almost as much as one Master Chief.
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