

The last Spartans and UNSC military are unable to stop the Covenant from bombarding the surface with plasma. In 2552, the Covenant arrive at Reach, the UNSC's last major stronghold, and launch an invasion of the planet.

The Covenant's superior technology and numbers prove decisive advantages though effective, the Spartans are too few in number to turn the tide of battle in humanity's favor. The Covenant leadership declares humanity heretics and an affront to their gods-the Forerunners-and begins a holy war of genocide. In the year 2525 the human colony of Harvest falls under attack by a theocratic alliance of alien races known as the Covenant. The UNSC creates an elite group of enhanced supersoldiers, known as Spartans, to suppress the rebellion covertly. Tensions escalate between the older and more stable "Inner Colonies" and the remote "Outer Colonies", leading to civil war. Tens of thousands of years later in the 26th century, humanity-under the auspices of the United Nations Space Command or UNSC-colonize many worlds thanks to the development of faster-than-light " slipstream" travel.
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Delaying as long as they could, the Forerunners activated the rings and disappeared. The Halo Array, when activated, would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy-depriving the Flood of their food. Using an installation known as the Ark, they built seven large ring-shaped megastructures known as Halos. The Forerunners conceived a weapon of last resort to combat the Flood. The Flood, which spread through infestation of sentient life, overran much of the Milky Way Galaxy. In the distant past, an intelligent race called the Forerunners fought an alien parasite known as the Flood.
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The collective group of fans of the series is referred to as the "Halo Nation". The cultural impact of the Halo series has been compared by writer Brian Bendis to that of Star Wars. A new installment in a second trilogy of games, Halo 4, is currently in development. A high-definition remake of the first game entitled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was released in November 2011. Bungie also contributed the expansion Halo 3: ODST and a prequel Halo: Reach, their last project for the franchise. Beyond the original trilogy, other "Halo" games have branched off into other video game genres, including Halo Wars, a real-time strategy game produced as developer Ensemble Studios' last project. Strong sales of the games led to the franchise's expansion to other mediums there are multiple bestselling novels, graphic novels, and other licensed products. The games have sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and all Halomerchandise has grossed almost $3 billion. Halo: Reach, in turn, broke the record set by Halo 3, selling $200 million USD worth of copies on its first day of release. Halo 3 sold more than US$170 million worth of copies in the first twenty-four hours of release, breaking the record set by Halo 2 three years prior. Fueled by the success of Halo: Combat Evolved, and immense marketing campaigns from publisher Microsoft, its sequels went on to break various sales records. This has led to the term " Halo killer" being used to describe console games that aspire, or are considered, to be better than Halo. The series has been praised as being among the best first-person shooters on a video game console, and is considered the Microsoft Xbox's " killer app". The term "Halo" refers to Halo megastructures: large, habitable ringed structures, similar to the Orbitals in Iain M Banks' Culture novels, or author Larry Niven's Ringworld. Many of the games center on the experiences of Master Chief John-117, a cybernetically-enhanced human super-soldier, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. The Covenant are led by their leaders, The Prophets, and worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished in combat with the parasitic Flood. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. Halo is a multi-billion dollar fiction video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed by 343 Industries and owned by Microsoft Studios.
