UNSC Eidolon

The was a UNSC warship that saw service at the end of the Human-Covenant War, and beyond. Modified heavily by the Office of Naval Intelligence, she was used to support the UNSC's growing need for a long range, special forces support vessel. Despite her originally designed role, she would go on to partake in a number of operations, with her honours including supporting the , delivering a for a , and fighting in the siege of the Solar system itself.
 
The Eidolon would go on to carve out an important legacy in the post-war period, supporting the UNSC's efforts against the myriad threats to their survival, and becoming a focal point of resistance during the Created Conflict. The legacy of the Eidolon left a permanent mark on the UNSC's doctrine in both naval service and as a commando ship.
 
==Service History==
 
===Construction===
The ship that became known as the Eidolon was originally laid down in Reyes-Mclees Shipyards, over Mars. Part of the Griffon-class build plan, the ship was originally given the prospective hull code of CVG-145 and the name UNSC Alexandria. The Griffon-class was part of build plan Ibbott, named after then Vice Admiral Ibbott. This called for the modification of existing build plans to create cheaper, and faster to produce ships, but with modular sub-systems that allowed the ship to be easily upgraded, or for the design plan to be changed mid-production to account for adjusting technology. This build plan came into effect on 2531 and resulted in a variety of new or modified ship classes to fulfil the UNSC's needs. The Alexandria was laid down on the 4th of October, 2542 as a block III Griffon-class Carrier.
 
In 2543 the Mittermeyer committee was formed as part of the UNSC and ONI's Joint Operations Directorate. The Mittermeyer committee was formed under Rear Admiral Giselle Mittermeyer with the express purpose of proposing the UNSC's long distance strike capability. The UNSC had spent a significant portion of the war engaged in defensive or counter-attack positions, and rarely had the means to launch strikes deep into Covenant territory. While there had been a number of attempts during the war, with being one of the rare successes, and Operation: Red Carnival being one of the less successful, the UNSC sought a more reliable means of conducting operations in Covenant space, and committing them deeper into enemy territory than ever. The Mittermeyer Committee explored a number of options, with the most heavily favoured being a fleet of self-sufficient Prowler tenders that shared the stealth capabilities of their smaller compatriots, but the means to build, and field them, would be 20 years away. The solution was needed now, more than ever. ONI proposed a radical solution to the Navy's representative on the committee.
 
 
The UNSC Navy was appalled at the prospect. They were losing carriers faster than they could build them. The thought of just releasing one to ONI to take it off frontline duty was horrifying. The UNSCN and ONI continued to argue back and forth, attempting to seek compromise or alternative solutions. ONI stood fast. They wanted a carrier. The Navy agreed, on one condition. ONI helps the Navy in their strategic goals, the Navy gives them the carrier. While the list of conditions was long, ONI accepted.
 
In 2541 intelligence officers under Vice Admiral Preston Cole had identified large scale Covenant fleet movements around 51 Pegasi System, indicating vital strategic importance. Covenant fleet movements seemed to be centred around 51 Pegasi, which indicated a refuelling station. Unmanned probes confirmed as much, with a close shot of Pegasi Delta showing refinery infrastructure on the surface and evidence of Tritium and Deuterium detected. Cole had been relying on the Covenant's stretching supply lines to try and wear them down, and Pegasi Delta shortened their supply line significantly, allowing the Covenant to refuel at the edge of human territory. Neutralising this refinery would triple the length of the Covenant's supply lines, and give the Navy vital breathing space to regroup, rebuild, and prepare for the next wave of Covenant attacks down the invasion corridor. Destruction of Pegasi Delta became a mission of highest import, but the large fleet presence meant that a direct naval attack, a ground invasion, or even an assault by Orbital Drop Shock Troops (ODSTs) was not viable. Several attempts to deploy nuclear weapons against the planet were met with failure. Unable to resolve the situation himself, VADM Cole moved the request up the line. This passed to the desk of Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Danforth Whitcomb, and from there to Chief of Naval Operations Lord Terrence Hood. Out of tactical and strategic options, Fleet Admiral Hood, turned to ONI Commander-in-Chief Admiral Margaret Parangosky, who in turn handed the operation to Colonel James Ackerson and his Spartan-III forces. In the background of this, the Mittermeyer committee continued to negotiate, and both Hood and Parangosky threw their weight into negotiations.
 
The negotiations were settled, and were contingent on a successful joint operation to destroy the Covenant fuel refinery on Pegasi Delta. On July 3rd, 2545, the Pegasi refinery disappeared in a thermonuclear fireball, along with nearly three-hundred SPARTAN-IIIs of Beta Company. With the Navy's strategic goal completed, they acquiesced to ONI's demands. The near-completed Alexandria was given to ONI. The last time she was seen, tugs were carrying her out of the shipyard, and out beyond the belt. Democritus station picked her up, disappearing from slipspace at the minor jump point of Sol. Unbeknown to most, she never really left the Sol system, as she was delivered to the secrecy of the Oort cloud at the furthest reach of Sol's light. She was delivered to Special Assembly Plant Concord, where she was berthed in the shadow of unfinished giants, and ONI worked with feverish determination to complete the necessary modifications. Stricken from any registries, she was rechristened the Eidolon, chosen based on the poem of the same name from the 25th century Novum-Classica style poet Neske Rivers. In turn, the ship's new and official motto was derived from this poem too.
 
The modifications would be spearheaded by Vice Admiral Augustin Montagne and Captain Sune Larson, who was nominally involved in the design and modification of ONI's Prowlers. VADM Montagne was deeply involved in ONI's Prowler Tender concept and worked to finish the Eidolon as an extension of this concept. Larson's work was primarily with strike capabilities on Prowlers, and next-gen stealth features. In both respects, they worked at modifying the Eidolon to become a cutting-edge fighting machine, with the most advance technology ONI could offer. On two separate occasions ONI's budget for the Eidolon came under threat in the UEG senate, with the first being the budget in 2544 which was savaged by the Lower House's committee on ONI spending. Parangosky spent three days switching between bribing, threatening, or black mailing the correct government ministers for it to pass. The second was in 2546 when the Upper House's committee on military spending threatened to axe ONI's funding for this unannounced project unless they were willing to disclose the details of the project before a televised committee. Unwilling to do so, they instead placed the funding for the Eidolon into a large Navy budget for building plans for cruisers and carriers desperately needed to defend the Inner Colonies, effectively holding the future of the UNSCN's ability to prosecute this war hostage. Disgruntled, the committee acquiesced, for fear they'd appear to be purposefully seen as hampering the UNSC's war-fighting capability. This insult against the UEG senate would be remembered.
 
===Void Trials===
 
Despite everything presented against it, Eidolon was officially finished, and launched on July 9th 2547. She underwent a shakedown cruise to test that she was space worthy. Onboard were both ONI and Navy personnel, a small test flight group, and a company of UNSC Marines. This last inclusion bemused the ONI skeleton crew, though the Navy brought them as insurance that ONI wouldn't just disappear with their ship during void trials and declare it lost with all hands for their own benefit. The void trials proved fruitful, with her stealth and electronic warfare systems tested to their limit in mocked tests against the destroyer Xenophon. She performed several jumps between the Sol System, Reach, and Onyx. During her trials, she also successfully simulated an underway replenishment, though this was not tested under operational conditions.
 
While Eidolon performed beyond most expectations, a number of issues were identified during the void trials, including heat management problems and power loss from the secondary reactors. A number of technical and software issues were identified within the new sensor and ECM systems, which required both patching and alternations. She returned to SAP Concord on the 1st of February 2548 to undergo alterations and modifications. These were finished by the 8th of April. The ship was inspected by both ONI and the Navy, who both approved it and passed it for commissioning.
 
===Commissioning===
 
The Eidolon was officially commissioned on the 15th of May, 2548. Command of the Eidolon would be split between the Navy and ONI. The Eidolon was only loaned to the Office, and both held jurisdiction over the ship. Officially, the command crew, and majority of personnel were selected from the UNSC Navy, though with ONI approval. The majority of the flight wing and marine complement were also Naval personnel, mostly from Naval Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR). ONI kept a technical staff onboard who were trained and equipped to maintain the delicate and secret technology employed onboard the vessel, and an intelligence team who would perform the majority of mission planning or sensitive missions. ONI also provided the crew for embarked sub-prowlers.
 
The decision for command officer itself was controversial. The UNSC Navy's pick was a tried and tested naval officer, captain Reggie West, a reliable but not exactly inspired officer who'd served across a number of deployments. ONI's pick was surprising itself, and they did not select a company man, and instead picked a career UNSCN officer called Galia Meir.
 
Then captain Meir's career seemed to be in freefall, having been awarded a Gold Star for successfully executing the so called 'Meir Cobra' and destroying the Covenant cruiser Fidelity and Faith, but then silently punished for writing off her destroyer in the process. She was promoted to an administrative position in UNSCN logistics. Despite the seeming pointlessness of her position, she improved the efficiency of Navy logistics with modernisation projects and new processes. While in this position, she continued to produce material for naval usage, included improved ship designs, tactics, theories on deep-strike missions, and also submitted 13 separate requests for a transfer to a frontline combat role. As skilled as she was, Meir had fire in her blood and did not want to bide her time in a well-meaning service position. Many of the papers Meir produced ended up on an ONI desk, making her name more than known to them. ONI dug their heels in on her appointment, allowing Meir to be appointed as captain of the Eidolon.
 
There was no sponsor, no launching ceremony. She left berth in absolute silence to head to Reach for crew training, before her first deployment.
 
===Human-Covenant War===
 
====Pre-launch====
 
After a completed shakedown cruise, the ship transitioned into the Epsilon Eridanus system, and docked at ONI's Blackburn Station in Reach's restricted Lagrange 6 area. The previous month, the crew had been assembled, and the onboard complement was prepared. There was a massive transfer of personnel, cargo, supplies, and materiel, with the Eidolon both fully, loaded, and fully armed. It was here Meir would meet most of her crew proper, including Commander Sithole, officially the ONI Liaison, but was there to ensure that ONI's objectives were completed to the letter. Here the crew were introduced to the one serving crew member, Aoife, the ship's AI, who was originally installed as part of the void trials.
 
The ship, and her crew, would be placed under the command of Vice Admiral Kaeda Matsumura, a senior officer with Navy Special Warfare (NAVSPECWAR). Much of her career had been conducting, leading, or directing clandestine missions for the UNSC, and her nickname of "Habu", a venomous pit viper from her home of Okinawa, stemmed from her reputation. Working in concert with ONI, she would be providing orders from Reach through a daisy-chain of wavespace communication nodes, though due to the distance and communication delays Captain Meir would be afforded an enormous amount of command leeway in her orders. Vice Admiral Matsumura placed an enormous amount of faith in Meir, even if she herself had private misgivings. They were afforded a three-month training period to acclimatize to the ship, and for the crew, and personnel, to familiarise themself with her. For the majority of this, the ship operated in Zafír Sound, a UNSC military training area utilised by the Navy. Without too many prying eyes, she conducted operations here, with Meir drilling her crew and only giving time to rest when their schedule afforded. She understood better than many the dangers of running a crew hard, but could ill afford to leave unprepared, and the nature of their assignment meant they departed at the end of their mission, whether or not they were prepared.
 
During this time, they enlisted a revolving roster of ships to act as allies or aggressors in mission testing. These gave Meir and her staff an idea of the ship’s strengths, and weaknesses, and how best to run, to hide, and to fight. In faux battles against the frigate Athena's Gaze and Enigma Chain she found that the Eidolon possessed enough grunt to outrun their smaller opponents, but at the cost of revealing herself. Under the skilful guidance of Commander Renārs Liepa, their electronic warfare (E-War) officer, the Eidolon became skilled in beguiling, deception, and subterfuge. They almost slipped passed a simulated picket when Engine 3 earned its nickname of 'Hobgoblin' and unexpectedly quenched. The magnetic containment failed, halting the fusion reaction, and dumped massive amounts of heat into the ship's frame, and showing her up as a thermal blotch. Part of the structural bracket had melted, but repair was not a major issue. Nonetheless, Chief Engineer Isa Focht would continue to keep an eye on her problem child engine. There were other problems on the ship, like electrical cables burning out under heavy load, causing two electrical fires, a bulkhead failure, the dorsal and port fibre optic trunk suffering signal-to-noise issues, and two quantum computer overheats. During this time, Focht ran her crew in double shifts, borrowing from every department she could to ensure the ship was operational. Focht would earn Meir's trust with her diligence in work, even if they didn't see eye to eye on matters of the ship's space worthiness.
 
As the first month passed into the second, they tried their first under-way replenishment of a Prowler, borrowing Tempest, a Razor-class Prowler. This was an unmitigated disaster, as the first attempt to dock both moving ships failed, and Razor disengaged sharply to avoid a potential collision, damaging the umbilical ports on both ships. Providing replenishment for underway Prowlers was considered one of her main functions, and at first attempt it went horribly wrong. Vice Admiral Matsumura came over to the Eidolon to inspect her personally, and oversea Meir's own investigation into the matter. Meir, rather than chew out her crew, or tear them to shreds, took a methodical approach to looking into matter, reviewing ship logs, speaking to the crew of both ships, and informally interviewing the especially nervous logistics crew who managed the docking process, assisted by her executive officer Commander Garrick, Commander Sithole, and processed by Aoife. Matsumura was initially prepared to boot Meir off, but this approach impressed her, as it set many of the crew at ease at a time when tensions were on a knife edge. After a four-day process, they discovered the root cause of the problem was programming errors in the docking coordination software, which had been designed for ships of vastly different tonnages. None of the crew were at fault, and Aoife could make the necessary corrections herself. They would successfully complete their first underway resupply with Journey of Osiris and then completed a double replenishment with the repaired Tempest and Lunar Hound. On both occasions, the ships were refuelled, rearmed, and the prowler crews got to enjoy a week of vacation time on a ship that wasn't painfully cramped, and uncomfortably warm.
 
At the half-way mark of crew training things looked good. This was when Hobgoblin, engine 3, suffered an explosive quench. One of the containment magnets burst into shards, though thankfully this was contained within the armoured casing. While no other systems were damaged, engine 3 required an emergency rebuild. This required parts to be shipped from Mars immediately. Chief Engineer Focht took to assessing the damage, and gave a detailed report, along with needed parts. Focht's investigation showed an undetectable fault in manufacturing, a one in a million failure. This news gave strength to the hushed whispers of the Eidolon being cursed. Meir was not a superstitious woman, but even she felt there was a cloud over this ship.
 
Eidolon could still function without engine 3, though it was less than ideal. Meir decided to continue training while awaiting the materials needed to repair the ship. They launched simulated air strikes, and boarding operations, and did a brief simulated operation over the Military Wilderness Training Preserve to drill her Marine crew and Navy pilots. Under an orbital information blackout, and being scrutinised by a number of ONI and Navy officers, Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth amongst them, they simulated infiltration, pathfinder, assault, and combat search and rescue missions. This went without a hitch, even with her ONI complement deploying without Meir's prior knowledge to perform for the Office.
 
In the final two weeks, the parts necessary to repair Hobgoblin arrived. Meir spared every crewmember she could to Focht's repair teams, and press ganged as many Navy and ONI personnel as Matsumura would oblige. Anybody she couldn't spare was drilled hard on their stations. The engine repair was done in record time, and ran two safety tests to confirm it was working under normal operation. Focht ordered spares anyway, meaning they were in good stead. The Eidolon was loaded up with cargo, water, fuel, supplies, support modules, and a number of ONI support detachments. With no fanfare, she left Epsilon Eridani, to deploy on her first mission.
====First Journey====
 
The first mission for the Eidolon, and her crew, were to reaching the staging area for their future operations. Even this simple mission would potentially be fraught with peril. The staging area was in dark space, far from the light of any star, and deep within the Trailing-side invasion corridor. Designated Corridor Red, this had extended partially into UNSC territory and had recently encountered severe manpower shortages, a weakness the UNSC hoped to exploit to create a salient against the invasion corridors advancing into the inner colonies. Her path was charted to follow the UNSC's last two attempts at deep-penetration campaigns, which left behind both wavespace communication outposts and automated supply stations. Much of this was decidedly unnerving for the crew, as there was no support that could be called on this deep into Covenant territory. Passing glassed worlds and lifeless rocks, they checked in with relay stations on their allotted intervals.
 
After the planned jump to the Leto system, the plan was to pass Leto III and send a coded-check in message to the automated communications outpost on Leto II. As they left the shadow of Leto III, they detected a radiation emission orbiting Leto II. Moving to red alert, the Eidolon shifted to silent running, and began to approach with her stealth systems running. After a few tense minutes, they were able to get a clear image of it on the fore-telescope. A DAS-class Storm Cutter was doing a flyby survey mission. What came next was a tense waiting period as the Eidolon carefully observed their opponent on passive sensors while it flitted about in orbit. Guns were trained, and battle preparations made, as the crew waited at duty stations. Meir had a test of command as her executive officer, Commander Merrick urged a quick and decisive strike to silence their opponent, while Commander Sithole urged them to escape immediately. This nearly boiled into an argument until Meir silenced both. Meir chose to bide her time and wait. This created an air of discontent, as most of the crew urged one or another action. Only Commander Liepa stood by the captain’s decision, confident in Eidolon's stealth systems.
 
The Covenant vessel did not seem to react to them, indicating in never picked them up on sensors, and eventually left after six hours. Meir did not lift the red alert status though, and approached the orbital position carefully, running passive, then active sensors. They did not receive a ping indicating any hostile presence. Regardless, the crew chose not to wait. An encrypted transmission was sent to the communications outpost through a comms burst and then they travelled to the edge of the system and performed another sensor sweep. Confident they were alone, and not being followed, they transitioned back to slipspace. While in the long-term Meir's decision would be proven right, the crew remained discontent.
There was a collective sigh of relief as they got back into the relative safety of slipspace, and travelled to their next destination. Arriving at Bethel station, this manned outpost was further behind Covenant lines than any contemporary station, the last posting of humanity within the Covenant's advance. They delivered supplies, left them information about the previous encounter, and departed to conduct their first major operation.
====Operation: RIGHTFUL DAWN====
 
====Operation: MAGNUM AVANTIS====
====Operation: ABLE SENTRY====
====Operation: CRIMSON PALACE====
====Operation: SCORCHED SERPENT====
====Break in Operations====
====Operation: PALE HORIZON====
====Operation: EQUATION BROKER====
====Operation: COMET SHIELD====
 
====Operation: SUN SPEAR====
 
====Solar Siege====
 
=====Jovian Campaign=====
 
=====Mars Counter-Offensive=====
 
=====Luna Campaign=====
 
=====Battle of Askalon-36=====
 
=====Assault on Ascent Station=====
 
=====Siege of Sydney=====
 
====Operation: GORGON BREACH====
 
====Operation: ICON QUELL====
 
==Notable Crew==
 
===Bridge Crew===
 
 
*Captain Galia Meir, commanding officer: Commanding officer of the Eidolon, Meir has had a strange career path that led here. Part of the Mare Nubium Academy class of 2530, who would later be known as the 25-30 clique, she graduated with honours. She was of a generation that grew up under the spectre of the war, and was galvanised by Colonel Akono Menteith's words and actions during the Battle of Actium. Her, and fellow supporters, would be given the informal name of Menteith's Lions. During her time in training, she wrote papers on the subject of electronic warfare in naval combat, and study of the "Jovian smuggler drop", which attracted offers from the Office, which she turned down. Meir raced for a combat command, serving on the Hermes II, Trafalgar, and Leviathan, before receiving her first command, the UNSC Redwood. The Halberd-class Destroyer was written off during executing a flight-manoeuvre of her own design, Meir's Cobra, but destroyed a Covenant cruiser in turn. For this she was awarded a sideways promotion into UNSC logistics. Despite her loathing of the position, she worked hard in that position, introducing new strategies for supporting UNSC logistics, modernising their systems, and continuing to write papers on battle theory and ship design. She submitted 13 separate requests for assignment to a frontline position again, even requesting a demotion. Her history, experience, and resolute nature, saw her picked as ONI's choice for the captain of the Eidolon. She was not well accepted in this role, angering older navy officers who wanted a safer pick. Meir would prove herself a savvy officer, and a skilled leader, galvanising her crew time and again for missions to brought them to breaking point. Her ability to analyse situations, and make informed decisions, without dawdling or second guessing, was fundamental to her success as an officer, and her firm but fair command stance made her well-liked by her men, if not necessarily by all her officers. She was by no means a berserker, and knew their mission and their role would often have them fleeing from danger more often than fighting.
*Commander Geraint Merrick, executive officer: Despite his paper showing him to blue inside and out, Merrick is very much an ONI man, he just hasn't got the black uniform to prove it yet. While not fully antagonistic, he is a hardliner, and objective orientated. The success of the mission, and the pursuit of their objectives matter, and nothing outside the UNSC and ONI's goals matter. Meir long suspected he was intentionally placed as a foil for herself, and that may not be entirely wrong. He's served in a number of roles over the years, and has been in and out of navy special projects, always returning back to a ship-board position.
*Lieutenant Yazhu Li, Helmsman: Handpicked by Meir, Lieutenant Li was Meir's helmsman on the Redwood, and went on to be helmsman on the carrier Elysium before being transferred at Meir's request. Li is an excellent officer of good standing, but is fairly monomaniacally focused on his duties, with little care outside of that. People often find Li's focus and drive unsettling, but Meir values his dedication to his craft, especially when that dedication is dancing a city sized warship through a mine field.
*Lieutenant Gregorio Ermacora, Navigation: Skilled in both stellar cartography and FTL navigation, Ermacora is a polymath recruited by UNSCN right out of college. They have exceptional memory retention skills that serve them well as a member of UNSC Astronavigation, but they are seemingly oblivious to the fact there's a kill order on them should the ship be fatally compromised by the Covenant. Ermacora is very out of place amongst his military peers, being a rather affable and dopey fellow, when not focusing on his duties.
*Commander Renārs Liepa, Electronic Warfare officer: A sailor with a long history of excellent service, Liepa has served as an electronic warfare both in the Navy, and in ONI. He was the top candidate for the role, with many of the techniques used being either familiar, or created by him. While perhaps an old hand in his role, he's an absolutely expert, and his familiarity with the Eidolon's many E-War modules allows him to protect the ship. Liepa is known for his flagrant disregard of military protocol. He's confident that he's immune to discipline because of his expertise, and he may just be right. Meir tolerates, and Merrick accepts it begrudgingly.
*Lieutenant Commander Theano Michelakis, Cyberwarfare officer: A wunderkind at twelve, she hacked the primary power grid on Neos Atlantis and held it hostage for six hours. This, naturally attracted the attention of ONI, but they could never quite get the leverage on her. A UNSC Navy officer beat them to the punch by introducing her to military grade counter intrusion protocols, and frustrated at the puzzle signed up for the Navy. Amongst the youngest to join, she was immediately referred to the Cyberwarfare School on Mars, and from there ran slipshod through Covenant systems. From a list of two-hundred candidates, Meir personally chose her after a brief meeting, where she talked at length about almonds grown on her settlement on Neos Atlantis. Talkative, fast-witted, and a skilled multitasker, she's the youngest on the bridge by a significant margin.
*Lieutenant Endre Kelemen, Weapons officer: Raised up through non-commissioned ranks, Endre served as a gunner on the fleet and survived more encounters than he cares to admit, but his service during the Siege of the Atlas Moons saw a battlefield promotion to Ensign, by Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb himself. Sent back to OCS for training, he was already an expert in many of the UNSC's weapon systems, and devoured the knowledge. While stern and dour, he's an extremely capable officer, and loyal to a fault.
*Captain Isa Focht, chief engineer officer: The ship's chief engineer, she's served across nearly every ship type in the fleet, and possess a near encyclopaedic knowledge of ship engines. A superstitious lady, she personally named the engines for what she perceives as their personalities. Popular with her crew, she's known to work them hard, but her jovial attitude, and willingness to get her hands just as dirty, makes her well liked. Loud and brash, she's not afraid to speak her mind, something Meir openly welcomes.
*Captain Luciana Mora, chief medical officer: A senior medical professional, she exudes the aura of a calm professional. She and her staff are responsible for the physical and mental wellbeing of the crew, so work tirelessly to do so. She's often Meir's confidant as well, the two allegedly having a stashed bottle of 2490 Madrigan Rum ("What a great year that was!"). Without notice, everybody comments on the fact she' keeps an M6 holstered at all times. Mora has survived two Covenant boarding attempts, and learned the lesson to keep armed at all times.
*Captain Tuân Phan, Carrier Air Wing: An experienced navy flyer, Phan's movement to command has not been an entirely easy one. An experienced flight officer, he has been a served as a squadron leader, and was selected for promotion to a command role. Technically below Meir in terms of precedence, he's comfortable taking commands, but not comfortable commanding his men from the front. Phan is more than capable, with excellent organisational skills, and a "take charge and move out" command style.
 
*Aoife AFE-0442-1, ship's AI: The ship's prime AI, she was a product of Daedalia Technology. She was created from a neural scan of chess prodigy Nessa Kavanah, who died following a car crash in Losantiville, Mars. Aoife has undergone six months of the necessary modifications and calibration to serve as a ship AI, was Loganville present for part of the shakedown cruise. Already familiar with the vessel, Aoife presents herself as a calculating and deliberate individual, one who seems to manoeuvre herself like a chess piece. She has stellar focus, and presents herself as very matter-of-factly. There are several other AI who operate in close proximity to her, and she works well enough when ordered. Meir doesn't trust her, unsure of how much ONI was involved in her conception, but Michelakis seems to be the only one with any genuine human connection to her.
===ONI Crew===
 
 
*Commander Isaac Sithole, ONI liaison
 
===Other Crew===
 
 
 
civilian engineer
 
==Complement==
 
===Marine Complement===
 
 
 
*Third Marine Expeditionary Brigade (Special Operations Capable): A combined arms force of Marines with integrated armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), logistics elements, and dropships, they are principally formed around the 167th regiment, and can conduct both convetional warfare and direct action. 
**Brigade Headquarters
***Combat Engineer Company: Two companies of special forces trained engineers who are as skilled in destroying bridges as they are at building them.
***Reconnaissance Company: A company of special operations capable marines can can perform mounted and dismounted reconnaissance. They provide intelligence, and are also trained for fire direction and target acquisition, so they can direct artillery fire from organic units, air assets, or from the Eidolon herself. 
***E-War Company: A motorised company who handles the needs of on-field electronic warfare to provide combat coverage for troops during deployment. 
***Signals Company: The Signals company assists in communications between units, and also between Eidolon, and their linked assets. 
**167th Marine Special Forces Regiment "Thunder Strike": A special operations capable Marine regiment, Thunder Strike is an element of Marine Special Forces command. Skilled in direct operations, deep reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, base security, foreign security, and VBSS (Visit, board, search, and seizure). The regiment was initially activated during the Insurrection and continued during the war with the Covenant. Battle honours include Madrigal, Hat Yai, and Miridem, along with numerous other operations. They have organic mechanized and artillery battalions, allowing them to fight as a conventional force when called on, and are skilled in void, airborne, and ground combat operations. 
***HQ company
***1st Battalion: 167th's tip of the spear, they are an infantry battalion of hardened fighters and capable soldiers.
***2nd Battalion: 2Bat specialise is airborne operations, either through parachute insertion, or aerial assault from Pelicans.
***3rd Battalion: Their primary domain is supporting action for other units, or loaned to assist the ODSTs or ONI.
***4th Battalion: As part of the combined arms needs of the Eidolon, they have a modest amount of armour, with Scorpions and other AFVs to conduct armoured and mechanised combat, primarily as support. They are drawn from the 96th Marine Armoured Regiment. 
***5th Battalion: The last combat battalion is a mechanised artillery battalion whose mission role is to provide fire support from mortars, howitzers, and rocket launchers, in order to support the activity of other units. They are drawn from the 64th Marine Regiment. 
**Combat Logistics Regiment 182: The logistics element of 3rd MEB(SOC), they have an HQ company and three battalions who provide logistics support for both 3rd MEB(SOC) but also for the ODST units they work alongside. 
*13th Shock Troops Battalion/A Company "Void Spears": An elite Orbital Drop Shock Trooper battalion, they are amongst the deadliest troops available to the UNSC. Skilled in combat, and specialising in dangerous drop pod insertions, and zero-g combat. Capable with a variety of missions, they are the UNSC's best of the best, if you don't count Spartans. Void Spears are part of a more recently formed battalion, as the need for ODSTs is outstripping their high casualty rates, with many veterans from damaged or destroyed units.
*3rd Marine Force Reconnaissance/ODST Battalion/C Company/First Platoon "Wardens": A sister unit to ODSTs, ODST Force Recon enact deep reconnaissance, covert surveillance, gather HUMINT, and counter-terrorism operations. They also cooperate with Void Spears by performing the role of path finders.
 
===ONI Complement===
 
 
 
The ONI deployment onboard the Eidolon has the designation of Action Group Partisan. This consists of multiple squadrons who cover various activities and missions. Not all are a combat unit, and serve a variety of purposes. Many of these consisted of smaller elements of larger ONI formations and departments who were not named beyond ominous callsigns and strange patches. These numbered around a company, in total. The personal come from a range of specialist fields, as well as military and civilian backgrounds. They most commonly operate directly with ODSTs, who provide the majority of operation security for their away missions.
*Command Squadron: The headquarters of ONI Action Group Partisan, and main liaison between the ONI and Navy crews/ They handle much of the day to day running.
*Combat Mission Support Squadron: They are involved in planning missions, and supply teams with the necessary intelligence and equipment to succeed.
*Tactical Squadron: A platoon strength formation of ONI Security troops, mostly positioned in ONI-use hangars or on the ONI deck. They are mostly there under operational security, but have orders to destroy any sensitive material or equipment in the event the ship is in danger of capture. They also have a responsibility to ship security, counter-terrorism, and counter-intelligence to ensure operational security and protection of the ship. 
*Information Operation Squadron 1: The main intelligence gathering apparatus of the squadron, they are based entirely on the Eidolon, and use the ship's sensors, and Cy-War assets to analyse, decrypt, study, and disseminate intelligence, which is then shared back to other ONI assets, including other Prowlers operating in the area.
*Information Operation Squadron 2: "Magpies" is a team that specialises in material and technical acquisition, undertaking missions to find and acquire Covenant technologies of interest. Specialists in technical intelligence (TECHINT), they excel in identifying such technologies and returning them for analysis. The Magpies often roped other units into seizure operations, for better or worse.
*Information Operation Squadron 3: "Raptors" are a specialist unit who operate ahead of friendly units, attacking and seizing enemy command posts and officers with the intent of seizing actionable intelligence, HVTs, or valuable electronic communication devices, before returning these for analysis. They were primarily concerned with seizure of intelligence before it could be destroyed, and acted with speed. More than most, the acted within close proximity of other units on the Eidolon, and coordinated closely with them.
*Disposition Target Matrix Squadron: The unit with the callsign of "Skull", better known as "Skull Taker" is an ONI kill-team of assassins whose role is to find, and eliminate, high value targets (HVT) with extreme prejudice. They are involved in the process of identifying, locating, and eliminating targets. They were known for their bloody-minded approaches to threats, and were not concerned with collateral so long as they were capable of confirming the kill.
*Special Rendition Squadron: They are an ONI unit who, on a larger scale, specialise in exploitation of Xeno races. They specialise in social studies, linguistics, psyops, interrogation, intelligence gathering, and disseminating this information, sometimes for propaganda purposes, sometimes for combat purposes. The shorter version is that they kidnap HVTs for interrogation and exploitation. They garnered a somewhat distasteful reputation, especially for the number of prisoners they successfully returned. This concise explanation explains their moniker of "Body Snatchers"
 
 
 
===Air Wing===
 
 
 
*Strike Fighter Squadron 849 (VFA-849) Ghost Vipers: The Ghost Vipers are a premier fighter squadron with a history stretching back to the Insurrection. Originally activated in the build up to Operation CATAPULT, they have been flying some form or another of Longswords for years. Current flying the C713 Longsword, a stealth modified variant of the C712, it possesses stealth plating, texture buffers, and infrared baffles. They perform long range strike missions, tactical bombing, and close air support. Ghost Vipers are known for a strong sense of cohesion, and for strong crew team work. Consists of twelve craft.
*Strike Fighter Squadron 1111 (VFA-1111) Mighty Ones: A relatively new squadron, it is made up of a core of veterans from other destroyed squadrons, and fresh recruits brought in to benefit from their experience. Their initially impressive record saw them assigned as the fast-strike squadron of the Eidolon, using their F-29D Nandaos to conduct rapid strikes and intercept missions. They have twenty-four craft. 
*Strike Fighter Squadron 566 (VFA-566) Minotaurs: Minotaurs are a veteran squadron who have just returned after a period of retraining on the fresh and new FSS-1000 Sabre fighter. Using the new space superiority fighter, they are a vital element of the Eidolon's strike group. They have the capacity to launch with a retrievable booster unit that can significantly improve their range, allowing them to act as escorts on long distance missions. The air frame is still currently being assessed, having only been brought into service months before launch. They have twelve craft.
*Electronic Attack Squadron 344 (VAQ-344) Comets: The Comets are the distant hand of the Eidolon's significant E-War capability. Flying E/F-713B Electronic Attack Fighters, better known as the Estoc, they protect other fighters from threats using the on-board electronic warfare pods. The Comets have a long history of successful suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) missions against the Covenant, and were part of successful strike fighter attacks against the Covenant as part of Battle Group X-Ray. They sacrifice some weapons to carry jamming pods and decoy sensors, and radar receivers. The Comets thought of themselves as the air wing's big brothers and sisters, regardless of their compatriots’ feelings on it. They have six craft available.
*Airborne Command & Control Squadron 78 (VAW-78) Archers: The Archers are a larger squadron who are never deployed in force, instead having their aircraft and crews assigned to other squadrons as support. In this case, only two of the craft from this squadron are present. Unlike most squadrons, each craft carries its own designation, with 'Artemis' and 'Apollo'. Artemis is a E-713D Spatha and Apollo is a ER-713E Zweihander. 
*Unmanned Fighter Squadron 116 (VUF-116) Haze Dancers: A drone squadron that provides support and mission deployment, they operate directly from the ship using twenty-four FQ-20 Kaiken drone fighters.
*Unmanned Electronic Attack Squadron 71 (VUAQ-71) Belt Hawks: Belt Hawks is a name of old, old providence, harkening back to the first United Nations deployments to battle separatists during the Interplanetary War, and the fights through the Main Asteroid Belt. They conduct highly-deniable, and very dangerous E-War missions, using the EQ-75 Thrasher. They currently have twelve of these drones.
 
*Patrol and Reconnaissance 91 (VP-91) Highriders: Recruited almost exclusively from the Lagrange colony platforms, Highriders perform the highly dangerous reconnaissance missions that the Eidolon requires. They operate the R-77 Yatagan, and current have four aircraft.
*Unmanned Patrol and Reconnaissance 45 (VUP-45) Ex Machina: This squadron cover dangerous recon missions by removing humans from the firing line by using unmanned drones. They conduct unmanned reconnaissance missions using low-observable drones. Their latest incarnation is flying the RQ-119 Poleaxe and has twenty-four vehicles.
 
*Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission 344 (DRM-344) Hidalgos: The Eidolon's long range/heavy lift capability comes from a Navy squadron of twelve MD81-LRT Condors. The Hidalgos have experience in ship support operations, and currently use their multi-role dropships to deploy supplies and troops on long range missions. They also have combat search and rescue (CSAR) capabilities for space/ground-based rescue of personnel. They are lightly modified with improved sensors. 
*Fleet Logistics Support 612 (DRC-612) Narwhals: Amongst the lofty squadrons of the Eidolon, the Narwhals are perhaps the most mundane. They are trained to use the D82-EST Darter. A simple and robust little craft, it acts as a utility vessel and a lighter, carrying cargo from one ship to another from a ship to a ground installation. There are twenty-four Darters in the squadron.
*Aerial Refueller Transport Squadron 187 (DGR-187) Breakers: To keep the air units going, the Breakers utilise KD81-LRF Fuel Condors. They conduct fuelling missions to supply both ships and craft with more fuel. There are four condors in the squadron.
*Unmanned Aerial Refueller Transport Squadron 474 (VUGR-474) Time Shares: The advantage of manned fuelling missions is the ability for snap decisions and reliable thinking, but the Time Shares fill the gap of more mundane missions. They operate remote fuelling drones to keep the flights operating with less down time. They have twelve KQ-510 Bustard refueller drones.
*3rd MEB(SOC) air combat element: The 3rd MEB have their own organic air element, who have been drawn from both regular and special marine forces. 
**Marine Heavy Dropship Squadron 417 (DMH-417) Black Foxes: Black Foxes have been part of several important campaign, and has just been deactivated after near-total destruction. With twenty-four D77-TC Pelicans, they represent the bulk of the lift capability of the Eidolon. They are primarily utilised to support groundside deployments, are File: Eidolon mostly veteran crews reconstituted from other damaged units. They also act as utility dropships to assist in supplying friendly vessels. They can deliver most of the heavy hardware of the Eidolon unassisted, and can also act as gunships. 
**Marine Special Dropship Squadron 205 (DMS-205) Laughing Panthers: A newly formed squadron that operations as the larger part of the UNSCMC Special Aviation Attack and Reconnaissance Unit (SAAR), better known as the Stalkers. The Laughing Panthers have a notorious reputation as dogged and determined, a reputation well-liked by the Marines they pull out of the fire. The currently have twelve D102 Owls.
**Marine Special Dropship Squadron 375 (DMS-376) Rescue Knights: Formed in the crucible of the Insurrection, the battle honours of the Rescue Knights during CSAR operations was extensive, and the squadron was folded into Marine Special Operations Command (MARSOC). A special Forces capable CSAR, they operate six MD-77L Pelican rescue Pelicans that can also act as fuellers, or insertion craft. Each one has two-four UNSC Navy Para-Corp Jumpers for providing first aid to downed personnel and recover them.
**Marine Special Attack Squadron 615 (DMSA-615) Dragon Fang: A joint-electronic attack unit under MARSOC's umbrella. They use three ED-77M Pave Pelican gunships, special E-War units outfitted as gunships for SEAD. They also have one MD-77P Mockingbird for PsyOps missions.
 
*Navy Special Purpose Squadron 77 (VX-77) Bells: A highly classified unit, with their own sealed dock for personal usage. Even their nondescript name masks their purpose. They fly three UD81 Condors, Condor dropships disguised as a civilian model, but packed with electronic warfare gear, signals intelligence equipment, and an FTL drive. It can neatly insert itself into packed civilian airspace without arousing suspicion, and gathering intelligence.
*Navy Special Purpose Squadron 52 (VX-52) Delta Jocks: With a name descending from Interplanetary War strike fighter pilots, Delta Jocks operate six Black Cat-class Subprowlers for conducting low-profile insertions and cloaked boarding actions. 
 
====Craft Onboard====
 
*C713 Longsword: A stealth modified variant of Misriah Armoury's C712, it possesses stealth plating, texture buffers, and infrared baffles. It carries a heavy payload with eight 50mm coilguns, and a mixture of internal and external ordnance including anti-ship missiles, anti-radiation missiles, tactical nuclear weapons, beyond visual range intercept missile, and a variety of bombs including thermobaric, octadarts, bunker busters, and conventional explosives from 500 to 2,000 pounds. The C713 is a workhouse, as capable of long-range intercept and strike missions, or close air support. It has a crew of two, a pilot and a weapon systems officer (WSO). 
*E/F-713B Estoc: A variant of the C713, a number of the weapon bays have been removed to make room for electronic warfare pods, featuring active jammers and decoy pods. They are further equipped with radar receivers to detect and triangulate radar sources. The Estoc provides vital support for other fighters by masking their presence, or obfuscating their activities through radar interference. They can further jam radio signals to harm enemy coordination. They are also capable of performing SEAD missions, attacking enemy air defences under the pall of radar jamming, to clear the way for a further strike, or aerial insertion. It has three crew, a pilot, a WSO, and an electronic warfare officer (EWO)
*E-713D Spatha: The Spatha is a further modification of the C713 that has remove all weapons, and replaced them with additional power plants, four Zircon point defence lasers, a new multi-link radio system, a battlenet node, a pair powerful radars mounted above and beneath the fuselage, and a new crew bay with room for multiple technicians. The purpose of this craft is to provide Airborne Warning and Control (AWAC). The powerful radar is capable of viewing the battlefield in a 360-degree map, it can track several thousand threats simultaneously, and relay this information to any linked fighters on the same battlenet, or through point-to-point laser communication. This improves the situational awareness and coordination of any fighters linked on the same battlenet, and protects them from threat and harm. While vulnerable, the Spatha often stays deep within a wide picket formation where fighters must first break through multiple layers, and E-War screens, to reach them. The functionally extend the battlenet of the Eidolon to service long-range strikes, and can relay information back and forth. The crew includes a pilot, an EWO, four sensor and communications operators, a combat director, and an AI.
*ER-713E Zweihander: Not entirely different from the Spatha, the Zweihander has much of the same modifications, but the major difference is in the sensors. The Zweihander has two sensors, both on the ventral surface. It has a weather-penetrating AESA radar capable of operating in wide area surveillance, or as a target tracking sensor, or as a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capable of producing 3D maps. It also has a high-power hyperspectral sensor capable of producing intricate electromagnetic images of an area. These support craft fly over a combat theatre on the ground to provide surveillance, command and control, and battlefield management to troops below. This increase in situational awareness allows Marines on the ground to react to threats, or to analyse targets. Like the Spatha, it has a pilot, an EWO, four sensor and communications operators, a combat director, and an AI.
*F-29D Nandao: The Model D Nandao is the latest variant, intended to keep the strike craft viable for another decade before their planned replacement. The Nandao is an incredibly fast fighter ideal for intercepts, and is usually reserved for protecting the Eidolon from incoming threats. The fighter packs two 30mm coilguns and 2 Medusa missile pods, but the D variant improves on performance with a new data-link sensor that allows the Nandao to share sensor information to direct fire, and new external missile pylons capable of carrying heavier ordnance, like anti-ship missiles. These are fresh built production models from Chalybs Defense Solutions.
*FSS-1000 Sabre: The UNSC's latest fighter, they have only recently been approved for adoption and are still currently weeding out small foibles. Fast and agile, they can be augmented with reusable external boosters to significantly improve their range. With energy shielding, twin 30mm coilguns, and Medusa missile pods, they can brawl with Covenant fighters on equal standing, and can augment their capabilities with external missile pylons. A product of cooperation between long-time rivals Misriah and Ushuaia Armory shows the desperation of humanity's situation. They're a carefully shepherded resource, and often used for long range escorts.
 
*R-77 Yatagan: Taking hard earned lessons from the Insurrection, the UNSC learned that using capital ships for fly-by reconnaissance for ground targets was neither subtle, nor safe, especially with the growing numbers of anti-sat strike missiles finding their way onto the black market. The Yatagan was intended to resolve this by introducing a high-speed, low-observable craft to perform missions in-atmosphere, or in space. With integrated stealth technologies, and a speed that allows it to outpace missiles and competitors, the Yatagan can gather detailed intelligence against a threat without alerting them. It features a variety of passive sensors for conducting signals intelligence (SIGINT) and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT). It also carries a large and extremely powerful multispectral sensor (MSS) for generating extremely detailed images objects. The Yatagan has two crew members, a pilot, and a reconnaissance systems office (RSO). This is a product of Chalybs Defense Solutions.
 
*D77-TC Pelican: The all-purpose Pelican, they can carry troops, cargo, and vehicles, either for the purpose of aerial insertion, or for underway replenishment of friendly ships. They can also take a breaching team for boarding actions, recover deployed equipment such as satellites, or act as a gunship. The sheer versatility of the Pelican necessitates the large number of airframes present on the Eidolon. They Carry a 40mm autocannon by default, but have weapon packages for heavier 70mm guns for close air support, and their weapon pylons can be fitted with anti-tank missiles, anti-radiation missiles, air-to-air missiles, rocket pods, or gravity bombs. Each of these have a sophisticated suite of decoys and protective measures, and a rear machine gun as an emergency. Each one has three crew members, with a pilot, a WSO, and a crew chief. The Pelican, and its many variants, are built by Misriah, but subcontracted in full or in parts to many companies to meet demand.
*MD-77L Gannet: The Gannet is a dedicated rescue and insertion variant of the Pelican, who's wide variety of multi-purpose capabilities can be used to support CSAR and special forces insertion. The Gannet has been augmented with a new low-observable ground-reading sensor and a positional tracker, allowing it to perform nap-of-the-earth flying, an extreme form of low-level flying. The Gannet has further fuel tanks, and a refuelling system to support other dropships. They carry a smaller 20mm autocannon, and have four pylons, though these are typically fitted for drop-fuel tanks. The Gannet has the same three crew as their Pelican cousins. 
*ED-77M Pave Pelican: This Pelican variant has been modified for electronic warfare roles. Sharing the same external features, and weaponry as the Pelican, it sacrifices the magnetic lift, and internal space, to provide for extra electronic warfare packages. It packages radio and radar jamming packages, that can attack ground and air-based systems, and packs receivers for detecting hostile radars. Used almost exclusively as a gunship, the ED-77M is usually tip of the spear, heading in front of Pelican formations to destroy surface-to-air-missile (SAM) sites, blinding sensors, and cutting the ability to coordinate, or even raise the alarm. Conducting SEAD missions, they render the enemy blind and deaf, so the other forces can perform an insertion without threat. They have a pilot, an CSO, and in a new hot seat in the cargo bay they also have an EWO.
*MD-77P Mockingbird: A sibling to the Pave Pelican, the Mockingbird is used for psychological operations (PsyOps). It carries E-War pods that jam, hijack, and override communications, military or otherwise, and inhibit communications while also broadcasting their own, interfering with radio, TV, satellite communications, and ChatterNet communications. Modifications have allowed them to also attack Covenant battlenet, communications, and most importantly to breach and interfere with the proselytization network itself. They still pack much of the same gear as the Pave Pelican, and can take hostile action. The Mockingbird has a pilot, CSO, EWO, and two communications officers.
 
*D102 Owl: The Owl is a lightweight cousin to the Pelican, designed to conduct stealth insertions with haste. Lacking some of the larger creature comforts, such as the magnetic clamps, it instead possesses a low-observable design, electronic warfare system, emissions control, and reduced visibility, without the maintenance heavy technologies of Prowlers and their smaller ilk. The Owl is used to perform quiet insertions into hostile territory, carrying the necessary ordnance to provide fire support. While they cannot carry heavy loads like the Pelican, they're a far quiet means to insert into hostile territory. They have the same crew requirements as the Pelican.
 
*MD81-LRT Condor: A navy variant of the Condor, the MD81 Condor is capable of performing multiple missions in support of their mothership. The extended fuselage is used for deploying troops and cargo, either from the Eidolon to the surface, or between the Eidolon and a ship undergoing replenishment. They can also conduct Combat Search and Rescue, both in space and on the ground. Their built-in FTL drive allows them to provide short hops, meaning the Eidolon does not even need to be in system to deploy them. They Despite their larger capabilities, their crew requirements have not increased over the Pelican.
*KD81-LRF Fuel Condors: These craft swap internal transport space for fuel supplies, along with external fuel tanks. They have external space/air use refuellers, and with their long range and FTL drive, they can head out to refuel both craft and ships to improve their operating range. These Condors are vital for ensuring the strike and recon craft of the Eidolon can continue to operate despite the interstellar distances they may be operating over. They can still carry some cargo to pick up supply short falls. The Fuel Condor relies on a pilot, a co-pilot, crew chief, and boom operator.
*UD81 Condor: An ONI modified Condor, it is soft-classified as a Prowler. Outwardly, it is an unarmed civilian Condor, but features military-grade armour, latest generation FTL drive, and a host of masked electronic warfare pods, and passive sensors. They are designed to slip into civilian airspace without raising concern or alarm, from where they can passively gather intelligence, or engage in subterfuge against civilian or military targets. There are five crew members, including the pilot and co-pilot, a pair of EWOs, and a mission coordinator, the latter three of whom operate from disguised stations. These were designed for engaging and attacking Insurrectionists or other dissidents operating closely to civilian populations. While built by Misriah's civilian arm, it has been purchased through shell companies and modified by the Watershed Division for ONI's needs.
 
*D82-EST Darter: simple and robust, Darters are lighters, small craft intended to rapidly shift bulk cargo and little else. With a pilot and crew chief, they can quickly perform orbital drops to deploy cargo to a ground facility and return. They can replenish other ships as well, but are not intended for warfare of any kind, being wholly unarmed. These little craft are built by the hundred on Vosper Engineering lines.
 
*Black Cat-class Subprowler: A product of the Watershed Division, and manufactured in their secretive plants, it is used to perform highly classified insertion missions of personnel. Capable of short-range FTL jumps, they can perform reconnaissance missions, but their area of expertise is insertion missions. Armed with a variety of exotic sensors, it can passively observe targets, and is protected by stealth plating, texture buffers, and infrared baffles. Stripping as many fissile materials as possible reduces their radiation signals, and can quietly insert personnel for ground-side operations and then retrieve them.
 
*FQ-20 Kaiken: An all-purpose drone fighter, they have a low observable design and several Medusa missile pods. They are not used to attack capital ships, but are instead used to swarm enemy fighters or escort larger vessels. While they can be controlled by a drone operator, they are also capable of all-purpose operating independently, or controlled by an AI. Most commonly they will be operating "wingman" mode where they will link to a particular fighter, swapping battlenet data in a band and focus on providing cover and escort for them, particularly useful in escort missions. From there they can designate targets with radar to protect the launch platform, scout ahead, and search for available targets. This improves the crew's situational awareness. This is mirrored in their capability to sync with an AWAC, and used to scout and designate, improving the accuracy and decreasing the risk of the follow up strike. They will sync to the local battlenet and can be readily accessed to share data and information for improving precision. These drones are manufactured by Ushuaia Armory.
*EQ-75 Thrasher: The Thrasher is a dedicated E-War drone platform that can perform aggressive jamming attacks, often as cover for other forces to launch their own strikes. Vestol Corporation packed as much jamming gear into its small airframe, the Thrasher relies on its stealth design and high-power output to protect itself. As its own attacks can be detrimental, it can be flown autonomously, or under remote control, and linking up with a local battlenet node improves the capabilities for it to run rings around Covenant air defences. 
*RQ-119 Poleaxe: A sophisticated drone, it is designed for space recon. It has a high-endurance design with stealth features so it can perform flybys unthinkable for larger craft. Packing a number of passive sensors, LIDAR, AESA radar, and an MSS, it can gather detailed information on a target and report it back to the launch platform through point-to-point laser communications. It is designed and built by Lethbridge Industrial.
*KQ-510 Bustard: An autonomous refuelling drone, they can perform long range, high-endurance refuelling missions without the need for a crewed mission. They can fuel up friendly craft with machine precision. It comes from Jotun Heavy Industry's current line of machine drones.
 
While not considered part of the air wing, the Eidolon also carries additional air and space craft;
 
*RQ-78 Kingfisher: Part of the marine complement, these are catapult launched drones that can be retrieved, but are considered disposable. They are propeller drive aircraft that can quietly float over a target, being small enough to go beneath the notice of most sensors, and deliver visual feedback to anybody linked on the same battlenet. They are primed to purge their own systems in a blaze of glory should flight systems fail, to deny them to the enemy. These are currently being built by Misriah under license from Acheron Security.
*CQ-818 Grouse: An air dropped or STOL launched drone offered by Misriah Armoury, these can be programmed to carry leaflets as part of a dispensing mission, or perform landings in rough terrain to drop supplies. They are quiet and low-tech, and can be shoved out the back of an overhead pelican to gently float to the surface.
*RQ-104 Kilij: A fire and forget drone, it is directly operated from the bridge of the Eidolon. While they can be retrieved, it is anticipated that the Kilij will be lost during the course of duty. Launched either from the main deck, or from the MAC itself, they fold out their wings shortly after launch, and once cleared from the ship activate their engines. Communicating back to the Eidolon through laser communications, they use both radar, optical, and radar to provide up to date scan data of a target. Built by Acheron Security, these drones are used in combat situations to provide accurate and up to date information, and are not considered a stealth option.
*RQ-555 Pulwar: Smaller brother to the larger Kilij, they are short range, fire-and-forget probes built by Acheron. They are intended to provide information on an object in a non-combat setting, usually a fly-by probe intended to read back basic optical and radar data. Classically an anomaly probe, they have been adopted for military use for scanning hazardous environs.
*WRQ-79 Qiang: A planetary surveillance drone, these consist of a hardened entry casing, which protects it on orbital entry, and then an inner payload that deploys once in atmosphere. Consisting of a loitering drone, it performs radiological, meteorological, and atmospheric scans to confirm the environmental conditions before deploying landing operations. Drones are not retrievable, and are expected to dispose of themselves. The are made by Horizon Engineering and is lightly modified from their colonial exploration probes.
 
*M8900 Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle: A standard pattern of drop pod, these are used by ODSTs to rapidly descend onto a planet with a great deal of risk, but is fast enough to avoid most anti-air fire, allowing them to successfully land and deploy. They contain the shock trooper themselves, along with all their equipment, as well as control and communication systems. While not always utilised in this manner, they can be employed as boarding craft as well. They can be recovered but it is not a priority. The Eidolon has sixty pods ready to launch, with more in storage to replace them.
*Long Range Stealth Orbital Insertion Pod: A more advance variant of the drop pod, this features long range, low-visibility thrusters, increase life support, stealth-ablative coating, and enough structural reinforcement to survive the rigours of a slipspace ejection. They can be ejected from slipspace, or deployed at a distance, and are harder to detect, but the downside is that the unit cost is phenomenal. These are not kept in a ready-to-launch configuration and are instead kept in reserve, to be set up and deployed when needed. They share the same launch platforms, but can also be launched from a Pelican or Condor.
 
*Veritas: This is a small, ball shaped satellite that can be launched from the Eidolon, or the bomb bay of a Longsword, and can deploy into orbit to set up a single, or network, of signals intelligence satellites. These observe the surface for radio or radar transmissions, and track their location, mapping out enemy units, vehicles, and positions on the surface.
*Azure: Azure is a constellation satellite that maps the planet, and performs meteorological surveys, and also tracks large radiation spikes or high-energy flashes on the ground. These satellites can map a region with high precision, then monitor the weather to feedback to troops on the ground, or to mission planners. It can also track high-energy weapon detonations and provide warning for potential radiation hazards as a result.
*Black Widow: Communication satellite that can be launched from the ship, or deployed from Pelicans or Longswords. With thermal masking, and a small size, they are extremely hard to detect. Normally deployed into an orbital position, these can be used to establish a communications network capable of sharing electronic communications and files. The more drones deployed, the more they can leverage their shared networking, developing into a link between different Battlenet nodes, and in-effect becoming an extension of the Battlenet itself. They can also be placed around multiple stellar bodies and into Lagrange points, creating an extended network that can cover large portions of a solar system.
*Black Phantom: The bigger brother to the Black Widow, the Black Phantom is a long-range point-to-point laser communication satellite. This broadcasts encrypted data in a burst of light, and fires in narrow beams across the system. With functionally indefinite range within line of sight, this allows a Black Phantom satellite to connect a Black Widow network around a third planet, while a ship connects to the other end of the laser network and listens at the ninth planet, with a few seconds delay. This affords multiple different intelligence networks within one system to be linked, and allows a ship at the rear to direct actions of those at the front, without risk of intercepted comms.
*Icon Plus: The replacement for STARS, it consists of a cylinder-shaped satellite, that can observe alone, or as part of a larger shared network. From here it provides both visual and infrared analysis of the ground, tracking large movements, high heat sources, and the like. These can be used to map out bases, force disposition, or defensive positions. These were devised as an improvement following the catastrophic loss of life from a STARS failure.
*Consul: The largest satellite on the Eidolon, and one of the few they actively attempt to recover, rather than destroy, the Consul possesses a large multispectral scanner and can STAR’S provide detailed EM images of a position, and images of high acuity and precision. These can be used to perform highly-detailed observation, a must for both mission planning, and for operational tracking, allowing forces to view their target in detail, and when the battle is joined to track forces on the ground.
*Pontiff: A new satellite designed especially to harass the Covenant, it is a parasite that silently listens in orbit of a Covenant world, having breached the local proselytization network from where it can quietly observe the local activities of the Covenant, monitor the flow of information, and gather open source and electronic intelligence. They accumulate information in their internal data store, much of it banal news from the hegemony, but also listens into Covenant ships swapping orders, or delivering missives. These are either broadcast over a secure laser line to a ship more distant in the system, or stored until such a time that somebody can come collect it, an activity known as "checking the mailbox"
==Role==
 
The Eidolon was modified by ONI to support a number of roles. Her primary role was to support both UNSC and ONI operations deep into Covenant technology, using the ship's high endurance and stealth systems to penetrate deep into enemy territory and conduct missions. In this role, she conducted asymmetric naval warfare, and provided assistance for special forces in action against the Covenant. She also gathered intelligence and conducted deep reconnaissance. The Eidolon also functioned as a Prowler Tender, being able to berth a variety of Prowlers, and resupply them. She also offered opportunities for the Prowler crews to leave their cramped and uncomfortable stealth vessels to relax in less spartan accommodations, a needed break from the months of tedium on long range Prowler service. Her crew accommodations were made to a higher standard accordingly, with more spacious bunks, and well fitted mess halls, and luxuries like break rooms and VR sims.
 
==Design==
 
===Hull and Superstructure===
 
 
<tabber>
|-|At launch=
 
The Eidolon has a primary superstructure built from Titanium-A composite spars with non-Newtonian shock absorbers. The spaceframe is super-dense in construction, and serves to keep the ship's structural integrity, while also compartmentalizing internal structures. In order to survive the rigours of combat, the space frame must be rigid enough to survive direct impact from enemy weapons, but have enough flex to survive high-G manoeuvres, such as orbital re-entry. The superstructure is lined with a lattice of acoustic sensors that sound the frame to check for stress fractures or microfractures, serving as a vital step in the ship's maintenance and upkeep. The superstructure measures around 50 metres thick in most places.
Attached to the superstructure is the pressure hull, also known as the inner hull. This is a pressurised plating intended to maintain the internal pressure of the ship, and also functions partially as an environmental layer. The pressure hull is made up of Titanium-A laminates, with an aerogel layer sandwiched between the outer and inner layer. The aerogel layer protects against both background radiation, and directed radiation doses. Secured beneath this in an airtight layer is a foam that expands and hardens on contact with air, filling and securing breaches. The pressure hull can have a gap of a few metres in places, while in others it is pressed directly to the outer hull.
 
The outer hull is the ship's primary armour layer. This is the layer intended to protect against enemy weapons. It is made up of a laminated shell of armour, that gives it a range of protection against different threats. The outer most layer is a stealth coating, described in detail later. Beneath that is an insulator layer intended to protect the ship and the crew during re-entry, and serves a crude-ablative armour against energy weapons. Beneath this is the primary layer of Titanium-A, which serves as the thickest layer. At time of manufacture this was A1-C5 pattern, which was enhanced to improve performance against energy weapons. It is a chemically enhanced laminate of Titanium-50, with nanotube lattice, elastic polymers, and light-weight intermetallic laminates that provides kinetic impact plating, protecting against micro-meteors, and impact weaponry. This also provides protection against energy weapons by ablating on impact, vaporising into a cloud of particulate that wastes thermal energy.
 
Beneath this is the ceramic tile inserts, metre wide ceramic plates that are designed to be spent and disposed of. These plates are made boron-carbide based composite derived from 8th Generation UNSC ceramic armour, codenamed PRIDWEN. A hard-faced ceramic, PRIDWEN serves to shatter kinetic penetrators on impact, and have high-thermal tolerances before they ablate, providing protection against energy weapons. This is backed onto a second, thinner Titanium-A plate, with an aramid layer to prevent fires and catch spalling from above layers. All of these armour plates are backed onto a non-Newtonian shock absorbing layer which can absorb, and dissipate impacts to the armour face to protect the crew and spaceframe from impulsive loading, and generating a shock wave and spalling internally. Beneath this is the primary environmental layer of aerogel that protects against the background radiation of space, and the radiation output of energy weapons, and beneath that is the self-sealing foam layer. Normally the final element is the temperature management layer, intended to protect the crew from lethal heat differences, and disperse excess heat into space. Instead, this layer was heavily modified into a thermal control layer, where heat-exchangers allowed the hull to by dynamically cooled or warmed as a method of thermal camouflage, allowing the ship to blend in with background thermal radiation. The armour varies in thickness from four and a half metres around the primary belt to 90cm at secondary systems.
 
To improve her stealth profile, efforts were made to lighten the ship to allow for reduced thrust without a significant loss in speed. armour was thinned around light-usage decks, and non-essential systems removed, including several hangars. This shaved around 3 million tons from the overall weight.
 
|-|Second refit=
 
On her second refit, budget was set aside to improve the armour of the ship, no doubt a change that saved many crew members during the coming conflicts. The Titanium-A hull plates were replaced with Titanium-C3, a post-war development that improved both the performance and weight of the hull, affording greater protection and improving ship speed. The ceramic plates were replaced with the next-generation composite AEGIS. This significantly improved both the kinetic impact resistance and thermal resistance, increasing performance against energy weapons. After action reports highlighted the importance of these alternations in saving the crew, and the Eidolon herself, in the dark days ahead.
 
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===Internal Layout===
 
Internally, the ship was laid out like many UNSC warships, with horizontally aligned decks arranged from the top to the bottom of the ship. These decks were connected by internal staircases, lifts, maintenance passages, and four internal monorails connecting her bow to the stern. Much of the bow was dedicated to housing her two main guns, and much of the stern housing engines and power plants, but the midship contains much of the ship's crew bays and important functions.
 
 
Buried in the heart of the ship, behind multiple redundant bulkheads, is the ship's bridge. The bridge uses a three-tiered design, in a long tall chamber. The top most tier is used for the command crew, from there they can direct operations and observe the crew. From the middle tier is navigation, communications, command and control, and sensors. The main bridge itself, where the majority of the bridge crew reside, contains weapon stations, area defence and interception station, EW stations, damage control, drone control (for shipboard probes), and computer systems. Ahead of this is the 'pit' where the ships flight management is monitored from, with stations for crew to manage the launch and retrieval of space-borne vessels, perform combat control, and mission management. drone controllers are situated on an adjacent deck. Each station has a full-holographic haptic interface and suitable modularity to a adapt to the haptic and visual needs of the user. These profiles are stored locally on their neural interface, which is connected during operation. Across the bridge there are several holotanks positioned in strategic locations for use by the crew and the local AI. There is also the main holotable on both the first and second command deck, and a larger holographic display positioned to the front of the bridge for tactical displays.
 
250px|right|thumb|Eidolon's bridge under emergency lighting as part of a drill, with the displays offline.
 
Surrounding the bridge itself is a panoramic display created by stitching together external cameras. This creates a panoramic view of the environment outside the ship, and this is further enhanced by augmented reality overlays to enhance the visual acuity and performance here.
 
Beneath the bridge is the system vault, a set of seven quantum super computers that are stored in cryonic sheaths. These are utilised by the ship's numerous AI, and automated systems. Each parallel computer here offers additional 'brain power' for the linked AI to improve their processing power significantly, and affords for the ship's many automated systems to run in concert with one another, even under a heavy combat load.
 
 
Further behind the bridge is a heavily converted section that has been predisposed for ONI's personal operations. This span of areas has been converted to serve various purposes for the office. There is a separate hardened communications suite, a meeting room sealed with a faraday cage, and a separate command and control room. While linked to the bridge's own systems. The Command and Control plus intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance (C2ISTAR) room afford ONI the ability to gather data, analyse incoming intelligence, interpret it, and disseminate it for use. This is a multi-environment suite suitable for support naval and ground-based operations. the C2ISTAR is of the highest security and few outside of the senior crew can even access it. Within the so-called 'ONI deck' they also have a separate brig, interrogation facility, machine shop, and ONI dormitory. Lastly, the ONI deck contains a sealed vault that contains sealed ONI orders, intelligence information of the most sensitive nature, emergency orders, and activation codes for strategic nuclear weapons.
 
 
The Eidolon is rated for carrying triple amount of the crew and complement she usually does, so the crew accommodation has been adjusted accordingly, with more spacious berths per-crew compared to a normal carrier. The ship has four primary berths spread across the deck with one positioned close to the engines, one close to the bridge, one close to the main flight deck, and the last one positioned near the tending stations. This last one is usually empty and preserved for crew from berthed ships. Most crew had individual bunks thanks to the lower crew capacity, there were few single rooms, mostly reserved for senior officers or VIPs. Most of these usually have conjoined facilities, including recreational rooms, VR simulators, and bathrooms. The two improved mess halls have built in cooking facilities, and even a bakery for fresh food, a luxury not afforded on many warships. There is a gym, outfitted for a variety of performance levels, and includes a boxing ring. The ship also has an onboard cinema, with seating for two-hundred crew members, and access to the last century of media for crew to enjoy. She sported other amenities, like several barbers, vending machines, two libraries, one for recreation and one for study. She even has three stores, with one store dedicated to essentials, one for more luxurious goods (usually entertainment items to be enjoyed in down time) and one offering less than healthy junk food. The ship also has a post-master who stores physical and digital correspondences to be sent home. Unfortunately, this all occurs under the watchful eye of an ONI censor so many letters have predictable black ink redactions. There are two heavily regulated bars, one for officers and one for non-commissioned personnel. The non-commissioned bar is notably well used, while the officer's bar, called Mackenzie's after a drunken incident during an unmonitored drinking session on the shakedown cruise.
 
Given the likelihood that the ship will spend long periods of time away from port, the importance of these facilities cannot be understated in keeping the crew happy and health, physically and mentally. There is a firing range on the lower deck, though this is only rated for TTR munitions or holographic targets, and not live fire exercises. Live fire is only completed on secondary range, which is a temporary structure fitted behind the main observation deck where shoots fire over the starboard deck on the outer hull.
 
The unused cargo bay Echo was repurposed into a crude shoot house for use in tactical training and mission preparations. Its use inspired the decision to fully refit it into a War Games suite during her first refit, albeit one substantially smaller than the likes seen on UNSC Infinity. It was rarely used for recreational purposes and most often used in the vein of its predecessor, as a shoot house to train, and to practice ahead of missions using simulated scenarios. During both uses the walls were heavily reinforced with armour plating, and a limit was placed on the use of AP ammunition and explosives. Even after being replaced, it was still known as the shoot house.
Eidolon has several launch bays and hangar bays, though due to the limited crew deployment not all were utilised to their full extremes. The main flight deck runs a long portion of the ship's lower deck, and allows for spacecraft to use the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) to take off at speed, and with assistance. This launch bay is usually used by the heavy strike craft, and can also berth smaller Prowlers and Sub-Prowlers. It is connected to the upper launcher bays by a central lift. All launch bays are accessible through a centra lift system which also affords the ability to move land vehicles to different bays for deployment. Each has access to the ship's internal magazine transit system where they can move ammunition from one of the magazines in minutes. Each hangar and landing bay has access to automated firefighting equipment, emergency cranes, and can adapt to any UNSC, or even some Covenant craft embarked there. Each bay has sealed bulkhead, and must be vented to launch safely, or risk an "unexpected launch" that usually results in destruction. The first refit augmented the bulkhead with an energy field that kept the atmosphere in and sealed it from the vacuum of space. As there's more real estate than there are craft, squadrons onboard have become decidedly territorial in claiming ownership of their preferred hangars and launch bays, in the manner of a friendly rivalries. Hangars are more often known by the epithet of the squadron who claim ownership, for example "Ghost Viper Starboard Bay 4" 
 
Eidolon hangar (4).jpg|A Pelican returns after a mission
Eidolon hangar (1).jpg|One of the internal ferry ways, connecting to the rear hangar and several internal cargo spaces.
Eidolon hangar (3).jpg|Pelicans perform a fast exit while under fire
Eidolon hangar (7).jpg|Hangars like this could be quickly optimised for different mission profiles, or to support different craft.
Eidolon hangar (8).jpg|The internal corridors allowed troops and vehicles to move into cargo lifts to move between decks with ease, and into hangars.
 
Positioned to the rear of the ship is the Eidolon's engine room. This is a cavernous chamber, which interconnected walkways, maintenance tunnels, and chambers, all surrounded by thick reinforced bulkheads. Overlooking this is the engine control room, from where the engineering team monitor the performance of the engines, arrange repair and maintenance, and operate emergency measures. There are several stations here with access to engineering systems, and a retractable bulkhead to protect the crew in the case of engine failure. This has the unenviable nickname of "the Watchtower" thanks to its high observing position.
 
On her first refit, the ship's lower deck was converted into a Spartan deck, using development from the UNSC Infinity. Nowhere near the size of the Infinity's deck, it featured forty Brokkr Armour Mechanisms, capable of assembling or removing a full suit of powered armour within a few minutes. The suits are stored in the nearby armoury, where they can be repaired, modified, or upgraded for mission use.
 
The aft section of the ship has been modified with several large Tender docks for berthing a variety of Prowlers. While some are small enough to be docked internally, larger ones use the external docks, which magnetically lock the ship alongside them, and extend docking umbilicals to allow crew on and off, and to move supplies, materiel, and fuel.
 
Aside from the above, the Eidolon has numerous armouries, machine shops, vehicle depots, magazines, umbilicals, lockers, and many others beyond. With parts of the ship not in regular use, there are many hide-away corners that are still monitored on internal security, but not actively used except as place for crew to disappear for some time alone with their thoughts, or for private projects.
 
Eidolon Interior (1).jpg|One of the exterior corridors connecting to a fibre-optic trunk inspection hatch
Eidolon Interior (17).jpg|Anterior corridor B-17Y connecting across multiple crew service areas
Eidolon Interior (18).jpg|Formerly a cargo inspection area, it has been repurposed along with the cargo area to serve as a training area for embarked forces.
Eidolon Interior (2).webp|The port service corridor within ONI deck. There are substantial modifications to mask the systems within from exterior analysis.
Eidolon Interior (21).jpg|One of the many mechanical lifts on the ship
Eidolon Interior (25).jpg|For as many clean and neat corridors, there are dark service corridors like this, in this case connecting Engine one and six.
Eidolon Interior (26).jpg|A cargo elevator deep within the ship that moves supplies up through the main line to be transported to other areas.
Eidolon Interior (29).jpg|A large fabricator piece that can build vehicles in piecemeal parts for later assembly.
 
===Powerplant and Engines===
 
 
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|-|At launch=
When she launched, the Eidolon had six primary fusion drives, each one an Antar Engineering XB9, better known as the "Mighty Nine". Manufactured on Mars, and uplifted to the orbital yards before being installed. The reactors were approved for installation in UNSC warships in 2545. It replaced the previously approved Naoto Technologies: V5/H-DFR. Despite having the Naoto Technologies engine built and ready for assembly, pressure saw that the new Mighty Nines were fitted. Each engine was a power house of performance for its time, and served to future-proof it for future modifications. With power to spare, it could comfortably only fire four of six reactors for a combat load and still maintain peak performance, if not speed. Each fusion drive is an enormous fusion reactor, fusing deuterium and helium-3 to produce superheated plasma. The fuel is injected directly into the inertial electrostatic confinement chamber and accelerated to fusion conditions, becoming self-sustaining. The superheated plasma can then be siphoned off to produce power through being channelled into a magnetic mirror, where it is run through a series of magnetohydrodynamic generators to convert thermal energy into electrical energy. Plasma can also be vented into the drive segment, where it contacts water propellant to produce thrust. This is vented into the nozzles, which use both magnetic fields and thrust vectoring to direct the thrust and direction of the plasma jet. With all six mighty nines burning, Eidolon could accelerate rapidly, and overtake ships of a similar tonnage with ease. This, in part, gave her nickname of the "Grey Ghost". Each reactor is covered in a massive cooling sheath, using a bank of lasers that catch stray atoms and absorb their kinetic energy by loading them with photons from the laser, taking their thermal energy in the process. This Doppler cooling effect kept the engines cool during operation. These engines suffered the same drawbacks of many fusion drives, in that their activation energy requires a high energy threshold, usually necessitating a secondary reactor that is more easily fired up, and can provide the necessary power.
 
While each engine was given the boring designation of engine 1-6, engineers often had their own preferential names for the engines. These were often part of engineer’s traditional superstitions and anthropomorphism by applying human personalities to the engines. Clockwise from top right (as viewed from the after), the engines were known as the following;
 
*Pixie: Engine 1 worked without complaint, and seemed to have a half a second faster up-tick to their normal fusion point.
*Omen: Omen is often well behaved, but whenever it begins to act up in either power rises or drops, its usually seen as an omen of coming trouble.
*Hobgoblin: Hobgoblin had an undetected fault in their central magnetic confinement, that quenched during startup on shake-down, but was seen as a misfire and not quench failure. It quenched two more times, first time dumping thermal energy into the titanium bracket holding it and softening. On the third occasion it quenched, the magnetic exploded and damaged the casing and reactor. This required an emergency rebuild.
*Misfire: Misfire earned their name from three failed startups in a row before successful power on.
*Howler: Howler initially had a fitting failure and produced a loud vibration on fire up. Even after the fix, the name stuck.
*Unicorn: Jokingly named engine number 6 has never had any strange quirks, or unusual behaviour. The mythological "unicorn" engine that works without a single problem or issue.
 
She packs no less than ten secondary fusion reactors, for use as manoeuvring drives. Eight of these are Antar Engineering XD5 fusion drives, and two are Antar Engineering XD7 drives. Developed in tandem with their larger brothers, these smaller thrusters are used to manoeuvre the ship, and not for power generation. There are four XD5s pointed to the bow, a pair of them on the ventral surface, two on the dorsal surface, and an XD7 on both starboard and port side with a multi-direction nozzle to vent in each axis.
 
To fuel all of these fusion drives, she carries five paired tanks, with both Deuterium and Helium-3. She has substantial stores to keep herself running for years without refuelling, and enough to refuel other warships without impacting her own long-term endurance.
 
Eidolon further carries a number of ion thrusters. There are 15 Boglin Fields Y51/L-HET and six Y53/H-HET. Each is a liquid bismuth fed Hall-effect thruster, that requires only a propellant and electrical power to operate. While low impulse, they can be used for extra thrust, or for low-impulse 'silent running' as the reduced thermal and exhaust output makes them far harder to detect. The further advantage to this is that should the fusion drives fail, or fuel run out, they can coast using emergency electrical power.
 
For emergency purposes, she has 45 emergency thruster packs built into blow-away panels along the hull. These has pair of tanks carrying trihydride tetrazine in one, and hydrogen peroxide in the other, and when mixed the produce an explosive jet that can long-term forcefully change the heading of the ship.
 
One of the key drawbacks mentioned of fusion drives is the required power threshold to get them running. To compensate for this, she carries a OKB Karman 20A Pressurised Water Reactor. Fed off an independent water supply, the reactor uses pressurized water to cool the reactor, and then heat a separate water supply to steam to drive two turbines. This generates electrical energy, enough to run emergency systems, and enough to activate at least one of the fusion drives. fuel and independent water supply are limited, so the nuclear reactor can only be fired in short bursts.
 
Finally, the ship carries an auxiliary power supply for emergency purposes. It has two UA Systems SB-A auxiliary engines, each a colossal bank of hydrogen engines, that provide emergency electrical power in the event of power failure. They are generally not used to kick-start the reactors due to the high-power draw. During an emergency power loss, they keep the lights on, the air breathable, and operate the ion thrusters, just enough to get the ship to safety in the event of power failure. Operating on minimum power, they can continue to operate so long as the ship still has a water supply to convert into fuel.
 
|-|Second refit=
 
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===Avionics and Subsystems===
 
 
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|-|At launch=
 
At launch, ONI took great effort to secure the prototypical Kawanishi Engineering SED-2446X1 drive to the Eidolon. Classified as CODEN V+, and also designated as an experimental Saddle box drive, the translight drive was, at the time, the faster thus far developed, and was a hopeful stepping stone to the dreamt of category of CODEN VI, something that would shorten trips from months to weeks, and weeks to days, and place the UNSC's strategic mobility on par with the Covenant. This came with numerous risks, but with a team of six dedicated engineers, ONI felt it worthwhile. The crew were told very little about it, beyond it being an approved translight drive, which was only a half-truth. Still, it performed admirably up until its decommissioning and recycling. It faithfully propelled the Eidolon during her mission, and during some daring manoeuvres. Even so, then Captain Meir always felt trepidation at dangerous manoeuvres with it, including the Jovian smuggler drop that allowed her to slip past Covenant picket forces and into the outer Sol system.
 
Eidolon was nothing without her AI, and had many during her lifetime. All of them operated through the ship using a Distributed Node Network (DNN) built by Acheron Security. This allows multiple AI to operate within one large extended network, and also allows the crew access to this large distributed network. This consists of massed fibre-optic networks connecting to quantum computer nodes, most of which are clustered under the bridge but with secondary nodes throughout the ship. The DNN also works as a local battlenet that is shared throughout the ship, the local battle space, and amongst the carrier wing. Teamed with the communications system it can establish a Battlenet zone of control over a planetary sphere, from as far out as a Lagrange point. While this network controls the flow of data throughout the ship, it is notably limited in the ONI deck, where it can only be connected through one choke-point node, where ONI can control the flow of data out of their localised network.
 
For communications, she carries several different systems for use in a theatre of operations. For primary long-distance communication, the ship has several MASER dishes. These provide powerful communications within a cone of operations, that are difficult to jam or interfere, but are not particularly subtle, meaning they are best used as point-to-point communications, or when the need for stealth is over. For more mundane communications it has a number of radio antennae for broadcasting and receiving. In both cases, it has the finest encryption protocols ONI can offer, preventing ease of interception and decryption, and while radio communication can be masked, it is still not invisible. Lastly, it has a laser communication module that can perform point to point optical communications, broadcasting messages along a beam of light. Virtually undetectable unless you're in the way, these messages can be used for point-to-point conversations, but only within line of sight.
 
The onboard systems utilise fifth-generation hardened electronics, with most possessing moderate to heavy shielding from electromagnetic pulse attacks (EMP). Despite this, the UNSC elected to further the protection of her class with hardware redundancies in deep shielded stations to protect the ship's central electronic architecture from EMP weapons. While not a complete protection, it gave her a fighting chance in the face of those pernicious weapons. This hardware redundancy also allows the ship to weather bit-flips, whether from cosmic-ray interference or from a dedicated cyberwarfare attack. From here it has the necessary software to correct bit-flip errors throughout the ship's systems and the hardened protection systems to ensure the hardware is protected as much as is possible. The ship's main software architecture utilises the latest version of Solex, the UNSC's internally developed software. A portmanteau of "Solar" and "Lexicon", its origin lies in the Quartzite open-source operating system. This was a continuation of UNSC standardisation and utilised the latest in protective software to ensure security. It currently runs on Solex 4.
 
The flight control of the Eidolon is managed by fly-by-light controls. The ship has five armour plated fibre-optic trunks connecting the whole of the ship, and allowing for redundant controls of her many thrusters. This links the entire ship through a network that affords speed of light data transmission, and a high resilience to electromagnetic attack or interference. Even if multiple trunks are damaged, the ship can still operate with at least one functioning.
 
A key part of Eidolon's survivability is the sophisticated damage control systems that allows her crew to survive, and in turn keep the ship working, even under fire. The inner and outer hull are both seeded with sensors that detect breaches and breaks in order track battle damage suffered, and plate failure. The internal spaces have pressure monitors, IR cameras, and anomaly sensors. The pressure sensor picks up abnormal pressure situations a useful mechanic for finding holes in the hull, large or microscopic. The IR camera can detect fires for automated firefighting. the anomaly detector scans the local air content, sensing for irregularities like an in-balance, or contaminates, which could signal a fire or a gas leak. This is reported directly back to the damage control officer, who can monitor and direct both dire control and repair crews. In the event of a catastrophic pressure drop, the ship will seal bulkheads as a protective measure. While a measure that may seem cruel, an unrestrained decompression can potentially be fatal for the ship, so the sooner a breach can be secured, the soon the ship can be saved. As part of damage control, the ship has several patterns of repair drones used for internal and external repair. These drones are positioned throughout the ship for enacting quick repairs and service.
 
*UQ-45B Thimble: A positively tiny drone, the Thimble navigates through firefighting spherical wheels with electrostatic attraction, allowing it to climb walls and crawl through vents. With a handful of cameras, and a carrying hook for cabling, the Thimble is used to investigate and monitor locations too difficult for humans to enter themselves. It commonly races through the pipes and ducts, inspecting them for damage or maintenance concerns, and can be used to run cabling to replace damaged segments.
*MQ-552 Bulwark: A multi-mission drone suitable for use in the ship, it has a modest second-generation anti-gravity motor, not enough for true flight, but enough to buzz around the interior of the ship. They can be equipped with different tools, such as repair equipment, or firefighting equipment, and used to perform much of the ship's mundane maintenance, both inside and outside the pressure hull. They are not considered space worthy, so are suitably only for the vacuum gap between the inner and outer hull, and no further. They have two armatures for manipulating equipment, and a hyperspectral imager that allows it to perform deep analysis of the ship's internal frame, detecting defeats or microfractures that would not be visible with other tools. They can also be rushed into dangerous fires to battle them without risk to human life.
*UQ-8 Sturdy: The largest drone, and held in a hangar bay, these drones replaced shuttle pods and are used to perform maintenance work on the exterior of the ship. Fully space rated craft, they can exit the confines of the ship, and deftly navigate around the exterior using an assortment of chemical rockets. It is packed with cutters, repair tools, and nimble armatures, and can work along the exterior of the ship to remove damaged armour, and replace it. They share their hyperspectral sensor with their smaller brother, and can scan the armour plate for damage that may require repair.
 
For combatting fire, the ship has two built in firefighting systems to protect the ship. The primary system is multiple reservoirs of firefighting foam that can be mechanically pumped to a hose station, with pumping usually starting as a pre-emptive approach under damage control. This foam reservoir uses HBD-A Foam, better known by the colour as "Green-A". A quick-degrading protein foam impedes and halts combustion. Useful against most forms of fire, and usable in a vacuum, it is non-corrosive, but considered damaging to sensitive electronics. The secondary firefighting system consists of a network of pipes with pressurised nozzles are connected across the ship, and are internally linked to the ship's damage control systems. These connect back to multiple internal reservoirs of Halon 4001. When the damage control system detects an internal fire, Halon is immediately pumped into the room to suppress the fire. Halon is a gas that functions as an oxygen remover, snuffing flames by rapidly starving them. The 4001 mixture is also excellent at snuffing oxidisers, and metallic fires as well. This, of course, starves people in the same area of oxygen, but the large number of emergency oxygen rebreathers across each deck mitigate this. Lastly, the option of sealing and venting the area can be undertaken under dire circumstances. This is not considered the safest option, and not guaranteed to snuff a fire with oxidising materials. A final option for only the internal magazines, is to flood them with water from the connected tertiary water tanks, allowing the ship to drown a fire, before then enacting standard firefighting procedures.
 
To keep her crew alive, the Eidolon has four identical life support systems within her hull, primarily concerned with redundancy in case one is damaged in battle, fails, or must be disabled for redundancy. Each of these, called the "plants" have a semi-biological scrubbers remove CO2 from the air and return it back to oxygen, while also dehumidifying the air and removing toxic particles. Oxygen and Nitrogen are stored in large, pressurised containers, to be used to alter the internal composition of gases. The entire interior is linked by tens of thousands of kilometres of ducts and pipes, that keep fresh air circulating through the ship. As an emergency, they can also convert the onboard-water into oxygen, in order to prevent dangerous oxygen loss. The life support systems also maintain the onboard water systems, recycling used water, cleaning and filtering the onboard water, and circulating that around the ship. As water is used as coolant, crew needs, reaction mass for thrust, and firefighting, it is a carefully shepherd resource, even when the ship is well stocked. It can intake water from external connections to refill reservoirs, from tanks, or from the ice plant in the third modular bay. This can convert frozen ice recovered from deep space into usable water onboard the ship. There are several reservoirs that are all interconnected, with the rear most being reserved for use on the fusion drives. Each tank has self-sealing properties. Spread throughout the ship are thermal pipes that act as heat interchanges to alter the internal temperature. This is intended to keep the crew comfortably, preventing them from over-heating in high-heat areas or freezing in colder regions of the ship. However, this is often subject to emissions control, especially with the ship's additional heat sinks.
 
The ship utilises antigravity plating throughout the whole of its interior, using Zeonstium plasma integrated plates. This keeps the ship's interior at a comfortable 1g, though it is often weakened in launch bays intentionally, or altered in strength for various needs. The ship features emergency hand holds, and motorised conveyors for crew to hold to pull them along major thoroughfares on the ship. None of the lifts, either for personnel or for cargo, are gravity assisted, with both upward and downward movement being entirely mechanical.
 
The ship carries several internal magazines, which are reserved for ordnance for the ship herself, or for the embarked craft. Slugs for all her coil guns, missiles, rockets, and bombs, are all stored in the ship's various magazines. The magazines themselves are extremely heavily armoured, but feature multiple blow away panels to vent the explosion into space should the magazine detonate. The magazines are connected internally by conveyors, each sealed with heavy bulkheads and both ends, to fetch ammo from the magazine to the guns, or to the hangars. These can be flooded with water or foam, or even vented, in the event of a fire. Sometimes if the magazine is too far gone, it’s easier to vent the problem into space than risk the ship and crew. 
 
Normally, it is expected for most carriers to carry mini-fabricators, automated factories capable of manufacturing spare parts, and chemical processors for producing fuel and resources. The fabricators on the Eidolon have been significantly expanded to account for her long-term mission, and improve her endurance and supply capabilities. A key element of her role is to support Prowlers in the field, and thus can produce some replacement parts, even if it’s enough for them to limp home.
 
The ship has room for five modular bays to extend her functionality with new tools and equipment. Only an ice plant was brought on her maiden journey, though she would pick up more as the journey continued.
 
|-|First refit=
 
|-|Second refit=
 
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===Countermeasures and Stealth Systems===
 
 
<tabber>
|-|At launch=
 
As ONI's darling, Eidolon was fitted with the finest the Office could muster for her. Watershed Division, Deimos Special Project Division, and ONI Cathedral Division leant their considerable expertise to the process of making her into a flying dead-zone on the electromagnetic spectrum. To this end, several steps were taken towards trying to reduce the behemoth's signature on sensors. Initially Deimos engineers were daunted by the prospect, as they'd never worked on anything larger than a stealth cruiser, but working to a set project goal of a percentile reduction in signature, and taking novel approaches, they were able to reduce the total radar signature of the ship from the size of a carrier, to that of a light carrier or a cruiser. This was done through adjustments of the ship’s geometry, and application of the generation-after next stealth coating at great expense. The new stealth coating utilised a liquid glass resin with an inlaid sheet of metamaterials. This made it invisible to UV, and rendered it an infra-red blackbody, and is radar and lidar absorbent, reducing the appearance on sensors significantly. In the process of developing this new material, they improved manufacturing of the material, and reliability, allowing them to reduce maintenance needs and make it cheaper to mass produce, something not fully exploited until after the war. The impregnated metamaterial was capable of acting as a texture buffer, shifting pigment to rapidly match their surroundings as a form of active camouflage. The Eidolon had the necessary power supply to maintain this for several hours of use, an advantage smaller Prowlers could not afford.
 
To mask the heavy radar and infra-red signal of the fusion drives, there are a number of counter-measures in place. Infra-red baffles have been positioned around the drive's exhausts, intended to suppress the bright thermal signal of the plasma jets, though they are only partially successful in this regard. Cryonic diffusers that jettison super-cooled materials into the wake of the ship are also used, but are limited in their use. Diffusers installed also disperse the exhaust gases to prevent large radar returns, but all of these are only partially capable of masking the plasma trail, even when used on conjunction. At best, they can move the ship from high-observable to low-observable categories. While most UNSC ships normally carry heat sinks to manage heat build-up, Eidolon has quadruple the normal amount. Each heatsink is a metal-ceramic hybrid heavily reliant on rare-earth elements, making each prohibitively expensive. Heat transfer pipes move heat from high temperature zones to the heat sink, bottling the heat within the ship while the hull projects a black body. This has a negative impact on the crew as the ship steadily becomes warmer. The heat sinks commonly have to be used to keep the ship in a low-observable state by eliminating external heat. The stored temperature in heat sinks is transferred either to external radiators, to be radiated gradually at a reduced thermal signal, or crudely vented directly into space, though doing so would be no better than firing all engines to full burn. Operations in the Eidolon is careful balancing act of managing internal heat against their stealth capabilities.
 
As a stealth vessel with only modest stealth capabilities, much of her covert potential would need to come from mechanical equipment that could make up for her short comings. An advantage held over far smaller Prowlers is that the Eidolon could afford to fit larger and more powerful subterfuge systems. To this end, she was fitted with numerous Electronic Warfare (E-War) modules of fearful potency. Her E-War systems could generally be set into two broad categories; Electronic Countermeasures (ECM), also called Electronic Attack, and Electronic Counter-Countermeasures, also called Electronic Protection.
 
On the offence, Eidolon carries a variety of offensive ECM modules for attack.
 
For electronic attack against radar-based sensors, the Eidolon packs several nefarious instruments. First of all, she carries two AN/SPQ-536 Anti-Radar Countermeasure Suites, one on the dorsal and ventral surface each. This is an omnidirectional radar jamming suite capable of electronic assaults against opposing enemy sensors. Effective against both human and Covenant radio-based sensors, the jamming suite is capable of several different jamming methods, with multi-band operation modes and frequency hopping. Accelerated by deployment of an onboard AI, it can perform wide-band jamming, creating a wide cone of white noise that renders anything caught inside blind, but lights itself up like a lighthouse, or produce a high-power narrow band beam with the intention of blinding a specific target through an energetic attack. She can cover a hemisphere at full power from high orbit with both transmitters. This allows the Eidolon to blind foes for a quick escape, or a tactical advantage in a fight, or to provide standoff jamming to cover a strike by another vessel. 
Teamed with this and the radar receivers is the AN/SRQ-851 Shadowboxer Virtual Decoy System. This utilises repeater jamming to manipulate the receiver radar pulse and retransmit in with doctored results. This creates false positives on sensors that are difficult to distinguish from legitimate ones, and all the while assist in masking the Shadowboxed Eidolon herself. This can be used as part of decoy operations, to distract the enemy with a threat of a new target, or a simulated attack, or provide decoy targets to absorb fire. It is more difficult to pull this trick against a group and tends to work best when efforts are focused on a single vessel. Related to this are the four antennae of the AN/SRQ-283 Radio Countermeasure Suite. This is a radio attack system intended to disrupt and interfere with radio communication, with the intent of severing enemy command and control systems ahead of an attack. This can flood enemy communications with noise, preventing commanders from relaying orders to their subordinates, and from those subordinates reporting on the situation back to their commander. This system is limited in use as it is all too easily tracked back to the Eidolon. It can, however, also broadcast falsified messages indistinguishable from the real thing, sowing chaos and confusion amongst the enemy forces. This is linked to AI accelerated cyberwarfare suite that allows for these communications to be decrypted, and encryption systems spoofed, fooling enemy systems into allowing false communications in. 
As a defence against non-weapon laser instruments, such as laser communications or lidar, she also has three AN/SEQ-397 Multi-Stage Light Countermeasure. These are a network of light-sensitive plates that react to high intensity light in other spectrum, and relay the direction and information back to the E-War command centre. From there, a high-power blinding pulse laser is aimed at the source. This laser is strobed across several spectrums with the intention of blinding lidar and laser communication modules. While never documented, there are anecdotal cases of observation personnel without flash protection being permanently blinded. 
Lastly, it has four AN/SWV-849 Flycatcher Drone Countermeasure turrets. They have a focused antenna that blasts a beam of radio signals with the intention of severing or blocking their connection to the launch platform. This can also work to interfere with command guided missiles. The aim is to attack their encrypted communications and make them as chaotic and as unreadable as possible. This usually results in the drone's software entering into a chaotic state, and retreating as it cannot determine valid orders, reverting instead to return to base orders. This system can also be exploited by the Cy-War lab to attempt to breach the encryption on the drone and borrow it for their own needs.
 
For protection, the Eidolon packs even more tools. Key amongst these is the AN/SPQ-625 Nullifier Radar cancellation suite. The Nullifier are two large modules, the size of a patrol ship themselves, and are active cancellation pods. These mask the Eidolon's presence by sending out radar pulses of matching intensity, but the direct opposite phase of the predicted reflection. This system effectively disables radar returns, rendering the Eidolon as a black spot in space. The system is, unfortunately power hungry, and computationally intensive, requiring direct monitoring from a smart AI to operate at peak efficiency, and even then, they may still be out smarted by being barraged by multiple sensors across several different bands. As capable as the system is, prolonged use begins to produce a noticeably EM signal all of its own, and it draws intensively from both power and AI resources. A further drawback is that if Eidolon is positioned with her back to a stellar body, this may cause incident as the sensor reads an explicit hole in a normally full radar picture. The Nullifier was a darling of ONI they were never able to scale down enough to fit the size and power requirements of their Prowler fleet, but the Eidolon has no such problem in either regard.
 
In the event that a particularly obnoxious radiation signal keeps interfering with the Eidolon, either by pinging her, or interfering with her attempts to ping somebody else, the AN/SPQ-786 Anti-Radar attack suite can be used to level the playing field. Made up of two nodes on the port and starboard, each unit produces a high-power beam targeted at a radiation signal with the intent of burning through interference with a high-powered beam and to render a sensor blind. This interference usually comes at the cost of lighting her up like a lighthouse, but it usually affords a window of opportunity for an attack, or an escape. 
The AN/SEQ-272 Lightshow Counter-light instrument is a simplistic system linked into the light sensitive sensors of the AN/SEQ-397 Multi-Stage Light Countermeasure. It has a number of beam emitters that will adjust themselves to the signal of the target beam, and immediately dazzle a laser designated weapon with counter-command signals, with the aim being to rebound laser guided weapons back at the launch platform. Against infrared and ultraviolet targeted threats, she carries several emitters for the AN/SAQ-552 Hotspot Near-Visible Light Countermeasure. These are high power lamps that strobe between infrared and ultraviolet light. These are highly focused lamps, working like spotlights, and used to blind and disorientate sensors that rely on these spectrums to track targets.
 
When attacks on the electromagnetic spectrum are not enough to dissuade, seduce, or disorientate an enemy, the Eidolon carries several decoy launchers intended to protect her from dire threats. Eidolon carries several parasite decoys, each an “expendable target”, with the aim of luring fire away from her. These are the AN/SLQ-671 Genie Decoy Ballutes. She carries seven of these to deploy as necessary. Each is a simplistic fusion drive attached to rudimentary manoeuvring thrusters, and a self-inflating memory structure. The inflated ballute looks enough like the Eidolon that they can fool radar and visual sensors into identifying the correct ship. Once fully inflated, an electric signal is flushed through the ballute material to render it rigid, and no longer in need of a gas for structural integrity, and carries a small spoofer to emulate radiation from a sensor. These can be set to drift silent and then activated, or preprogrammed to act in certain manners to precede a diversionary operation. 
When these fail to adequately divert targets, she carries sixteen Mark 707 decoy dispensers. Each one is a six-barrelled assembly that is fed from rotary magazine inside the hull. These can select from six ammunition types to be fired and disorientate targeting or direct weapon fire. Each barrel can be independently aimed to fire over pre-determined patterns or areas, to cover herself closely, or to create a wide defensive field. Each decoy is a self-propelled munition with loitering capabilities and pre-programmed commands. The rocket powered launch is relatively minute compared to the infrared flashes of combat, making them hard to detect individual launches. The decoy launcher can fire the following ammunition;
 
*AN/SLQ-741 Near-Light Decoy: this loitering decoy carries an exceedingly powerful lamp visible in both IR and UV spectrums. This decoy is programmed before launch, and this controls the direction of the lamp, and the intensity. This can be aimed to more accurately replicate the EM signal of the ship, making it far easier to confuse incoming munitions and weapons. Despite their work across multiple spectrums, they are often just called IR flares.
*AN/SLQ-835 Magnetic Interference Decoy: Colloquially known as ion flares, these flares use a set of powerful magnets that briefly discharge a powerful magnetic field. This is strong enough to deceive and seduce magnetically guided munitions, such as plasma torpedoes. They can be programmed for wide band jamming or for false signal production, expanding their use and scope.
*AN/SLQ-233 Smoke Discharging Decoy: Remarkably simple, the smoke discharger dispenses an expanding cloud of white smoke. When teamed across all launchers and tubes, they can cover a near twenty-kilometre region in high-temperature smoke. Creating a visual, and an infrared 'blotch', it is a useful, if crude, manner of hiding.
*AN/SLQ-556 Counter-Laser Aerosol Dispenser: Packed with RB-2 composite aerosol, these disperse into programmed clouds that can cover the ship, or a channel in front of it, with a cloud filled with ionized particulate. This has a partially disruptive effect on plasma weapons, but is most effective against laser weapons, causing beams to lose focus and bloom significantly, reducing their effectiveness enormously.
*AN/SLQ-605 Radar Seduction Decoy: Effectively a chaff decoy, it is pre-programmed to deploy a cloud of self-aligning micro-machines linked together, that can form complex shapes, or deep clouds. Each micromachine is highly reflective to radar, and can arrange itself into a wide jamming field, or emulate the ship. The micromachines can reposition themselves to act as seduction or distraction chaff, or scatter on command.
*AN/SLQ-778 Variable Mission Programmable Radio Decoy: The third generation of a decoy developed to combat cheap radar-guided anti-ship missiles during the Insurrection, these loitering decoys exist to confound radar weapons at a distance. The VAMPR is programmed before launch, and can switch between different modes, such as emitting spoof signals, beam false coordinates into the radar seeker of a threat, produce false signals matching the launcher, generate wide-band jamming across a wide region, or produce narrow-band jamming against a single radar with the aim to jam and disorientate it.
 
The Eidolon's Cyber Warfare (Cy-War) capabilities are something more nebulous and less tangible that her electronic warfare capabilities. Rather than routed directly through the bridge, her Cy-War capabilities are the Cyberwarfare Laboratory, better known as the Data Lockup. There were several Deep-Interface Stations here using what was at the time top of the line tech. These were connected to the ship's mainframe through unrestricted port, and directly connected to the primary quantum computer stacks. Through this, they could leverage the ship's significant computational power, and its AI resources, into directed Cy-War assaults. To do this, they have a high-power network uplink that can provide excellent bandwidth in both download and upload options.
 
The Data Lockup has significant capabilities that can be leveraged to both attack and intelligence gathering operations. A cyberwarfare operator can access other networks within range of the ship, though extending them against networks over a light-second away is generally unfavourable. From here, they can begin to engage in Illegal Entry Protocols (PIE), with or without the help of an AI, to breach their barrier software or encryption and access the data within the network. A PIE is an evolving and mutating breaching tool that has a variety of purposes beyond breaching offensive computers. It was designed to be adaptive to different operating systems, making it viable against both the Insurrection, and the Covenant, and works as a vital deciphering tool for technology. This cyber-attack can manifest in a number of ways. The Eidolon may attack the orbiting satellites to control flow of information and command the data front, from there intercepting data with impunity. They may attack a network to gain access to a single computer on that network to seize files, or place observation software. They could also use this to breach a wider variety of software and plant a modulating viral vector, or adaptive malware, which begins to expand exponentially through a network with the aim of seizing them, spying on them, or sabotaging them. This allows them to begin enacting attacks on hostile infrastructure, damaging or destroying them as part of a larger strategic or PsyOps goal. In combat, they can also attempt hostile infiltrations of enemy Battle Networks (Battlenets) during the course of combat. From here they can directly impair the foe's command and control capability, rendering the flow of information broken, or intercept this information to augment their own fighting capabilities. While Covenant ships are rarely integrated enough for this to be useful, on ships with more sophisticated internal networks, it may be possible to cause system failures through a breached network.
 
In terms of protection, the Eidolon doesn't skimp either. Her defences against cyber-attack consist of both hardware and software barriers. For hardware, the communication access nodes have physical cut-offs to protect the ship, as does the bridge, the ONI deck, the engine room, and the Data Lockup. This can isolate them, and their systems, from a potential attack. Crew's personal stations, or recreation stations, have heavily controlled access that can by physically cut, and usually is during missions, as an emissions control measure. A number of physical break points are positioned throughout the ship that allow crew to manually cut network lines through an emergency line break. As a further protection, the fibre-optic controls used for the fly-by-light system exist on a closed system. In terms of software, the ship uses the latest, and constantly evolving, Counter-Illegal Entry Protocols (C-PIE). In creating, and modifying a PIE, the C-PIE becomes strong, learning to defend from increasingly complex attacks, from systems that are strange and esoteric compared to its own. With the guiding hand of an AI, they can endlessly evolve and change against new threats. The primarily first line of defence is multiple layers of barrier software and network firewalls, using a mixture of primarily Maze Barriers and Attack Barriers. Maze barriers utilise an evolving network, where an attack attempts to find a path through, only to find the paths shifting, changing, or hitting dead ends. They are intended to frustrate, annoy, and delay a hack attempt while exposing the hacker to counter-attack. Attack barriers are vicious weapons that are illegal outside of military use. They lure in an attacker before launching a counter-attack by either delivering a virus, or attempting to melt the neural-implant or Riemann matrix of the hacker. This is all before even hitting the main firewall. All of this is just at the gates though, and intruders would find themselves face to face with multiple monolithic data fortresses. Data forts are positioned in strategic regions of the network as dense collections of barriers, firewalls, and roving hunter-killer programs, intending to make any successful entry onto the network only the first step into an arduous and uphill siege. A normal carrier may only have three data fortresses, but the Eidolon has no less than seven, many overlapping with one another to create lethal kill zones and traps for unwary hackers. As a means of camouflaging the user, the Data Lockup maintains an evolving library of decoys to mask the entry as. By spoofing geofencing and machine data, the operator can hide on a network without looking out of place, or arousing suspicion.
</tabber>
===Sensors===
<tabber>
|-|At launch=
 
For any warship, keen sensors are a vital necessity in the vast distances of space warfare, for yourself. | the Eidolon, they are more vital than most, with her sensors required to both perform reconnaissance, and keep her safe.
 
For visual location, the ship utilises a mixture of electro-optical and infrared sensors. Each sensor is a tight bundle of lenses, not too indifferent from the compound eye of an insect, and bulge within their mount, affording greater fields of view. The majority of these are cameras across the hull, serving as navigation aids, or threat detection sensors, clustered in what is called the AN/SSS-668 Optics Mount.
These support the larger AN/SSS-880 Hyperspectral Telescope. It is a full digital sensor, with optical clarity necessary to detect and track targets at near-edge of visual range. The lens is made up of thousands of sensors that see across the electromagnetic spectrum, that feed into dense bundles of photocytes to convert the photons into electrical energy to produce an image. While it can view an object in visible light, ultraviolet, or more commonly, infrared, it can composite all of these into a snapshot image of a detailed hyperspectral image, giving detailed information on a target, right down to the electromagnetic 'fingerprints' of materials used. This form of analysis is capable of providing an enormous amount of data, though this must be first filtered through an AI. This is useful for imaging for starships, or ground targets, and can feed back interesting information, like the presence of fissionable material, manufacturing defects in nanolaminate armour, and surface structures. The primary use is to spot, and track ships around the ship. It can be used for orbit to provide intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance, providing security and real-time tactical information for groundside deployments.
 
At the fore of the ship are the two largest optics, the AN/SSS-919 Long-Range Multispectral Telescope and the AN/SAS-920 Long-Range Thermal Infrared Telescope (TIRT). The Multispectral Optic is a wide-angle optical sensor capable of producing high-quality images of extremely distant objects. The scope uses an alignment of focusing mirrors around thousands of tightly bundled optical sensors. The sensor is capable of imaging across IR, UV, and visible light. It can produce multispectral snapshots similar to the smaller telescopes, or act as a panchromatic sensor, using all bands of visible lights at the same time to produce an extremely detailed black and white image. IT can operate in both modes simultaneously, to produce a pansharpened image, combining the output of both operating modes into one cohesive image. The TIRT is a high-power telescope using quantum sensors to read across multiple bands of IR, which brings back a highly detailed thermal image of the target. It likewise uses a ring of focusing mirrors and produces a wide image. These have the long-distance accuracy to identify and track targets at extreme ranges, and with AI-driven search algorithms, they can provide detailed information right down to the ship's class and complement. All the ships optics are built by Ganymede Optical Solutions, and include their patented electronically controlled single-crystal quartz aperture. These apertures can be moved for better images, are armoured against small munitions, debris, and shrapnel, and have reactive polarisation to protect against blinding lasers or nuclear flashes.
 
The primary sensor for Eidolon is her radars, of which she carries several. These radar sensors perform different roles, in both surveillance and combat. She has three AN/SPY-460 search radars. Referred to as the "spy four-sixties" these are surveillance and search radars manufactured by Hannibal Weapon Systems. They are rotating active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar carried in radomes that detect threats within a sphere around the ship. There is one radar on the ventral surface, one on the dorsal surface towards the rear, and one on the nose, giving all round coverage. These use digital band control to protect them from jamming attacks, and emissions control to manage their activity during covert operation. Individual, each one can track nearly five thousand objects the size of a golf ball, and is highly resilient to being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Once targets have been detected, responsibility shifts over to the AN/SPG-80 fire control radar. These use information from the Spy Four-Sixties to track, and direct fire onto targets. Each one is a flat plane, but with tens of thousands of steerable antennae, allowing them to track thousands of targets. They then direct fire onto targets, usually the secondary cannons, missiles, or area-defence fire against fighters and missiles. These are arranged into long flat plans, with four on either side of the ship, and one on both the dorsal and ventral surface. Their high power allows them to burn through jamming attempts, though this narrows the ability of their focus and renders them more susceptible to being overwhelmed. In theory, both the search, and fire control radars can perform either role, both having track-while-scan features. Their roles can be adjusted to manage for battle damage, or jamming attacks. Lastly, the ship carries a heavy AN/SPQ-13 threat tracking sensor. This is a large radio-telescope on the prow that is used to direct the gunfire of the main magnetic accelerator cannon (MAC) battery. This is dedicated dual-purpose search-and-track radar that can produce high resolution results within a narrow cone, and is used for gun laying the heaviest weapons possible. As it is a high-power radar, it is capable of burn-through against distant targets and works to track, and bring back targeting information out to extreme distances. It also has to be shock resistant thanks it its proximity to the main guns on the ship. While not a radar itself, the ship also carries several radar warning receivers that detect radar signals, and can triangulate their position. These are useful as a passive sensor to look out for enemies, and as a means of pinpointing threats for destruction. A key part of their radar sensor network is the application of antifragile measures to create adaptive systems that don't just tolerate or survive against hostile jamming, but actively improve under stress by using the efforts of reactive jamming to strengthen their capabilities.
 
All of these radars feed back into the Battlenet datalink and provide target acquisition data and information to forces linked on the same Battlenet, be they other ships, fighters, or stations. This allows for Prowlers to deliver tactical strikes using the Eidolon's sensors without ever having to reveal themselves, or for fighters to go "sensor-dark" and use the guidance information from the Eidolon to intercept and destroy targets.
 
Lastly, the ship carries several AN/SES-31 Sensor clusters. The finest new phased array optics from Misriah Armoury, these sensors utilise a solid-state laser and a precise flash to generate hyper-detailed maps, over potentially massive distances. These are good for precise identification, and can also read ground positions with high accuracy. While a more subtle instrument than radar, they are not entirely undetectable. They are also useful in navigation, and double as range finders. Flashing a ship is an alternative to pinging them with radar as it is less likely to be detected and tracked immediately.
 
|-|First refit=
 
|-|Second refit=
 
</tabber>
===Armament===
 
 
<tabber>
|-|At launch=
 
The Eidolon was originally built as a fleet carrier, a heavy-duty slugger capable of brawling when necessary. This was viewed as surplus to requirements by ONI, and she was lowered from prize-fighter to pugilist. She could still brawl but was by no means a guaranteed victor. Instead, her armament was modified to make her leaner, lighter, faster, and harder to pin down. Stripped down to half as many of her normal coilgun turrets, and with the breakwater bombardment gun remove, she was instead focused on fire support, or fire suppression.
 
The main armament of the Eidolon is a pair high-power over/under Magnetic Accelerator Cannons (MAC). The gun ones were nicknamed Bea and Beau, after the gung-ho siblings from the award winning 2545 movie "Saturnside". Bea is the upper cannon, and the small bore of the two. It is a 91A3E3 heavy MAC. Beau is a 91A3E4 heavy MAC, with a far wider bore. Both have the same firepower, but Beau has an oversized 15 metre wide bore that allows it to launch drones at high velocity. Both cannons are fed from a shared magazine, and fire a 1200-ton shell capable of pulverising most targets into dust. Each is an enormous work of engineering utilising banks of powerful electromagnets to fire a ferrous or paramagnetic munition. Each is fitted with buffers the size of redwoods to absorb and dissipate the recoil into banks of hydromagnetic power banks to return some of the lost energy back into the ship. Each one is fed from a bank of 13 liquid-metal capacitance cells that hold a pulsed power charge. She can afford to charge both guns, and hold their charge for the vital moment to fire. Such high-power spikes are not beneficial for stealth, and enormous heat sinks have been installed along the length of the gun to reduce its heat signature. Each gun comes with fifteen slugs, which are usually a mixture of ferro-tungsten rounds or depleted uranium. There is sometimes more exotic ammunition carried for special purpose, although these are undoubtedly rare. Each heavy gun is a fine product of SinoViet Heavy Machinery.
 
For her secondary armament, the Eidolon carries eight Mark 39 Spitfire coilgun batteries. Each is an armoured turret built into a barbette, and entirely automated. The guns have their own hybrid thermal-optic gunsight and fire director radar, and link into the ships' network of sensors to bring her guns to bear. With powerful motors, they can rotate at surprising speeds for it bulk, and use capacitor cells to fire a flurry of magnetic slugs from its internal magazine. The deep barbette connects the gun turret to a magazine, that can load two ready magazines from a set of carousels that have different ammunition options. This connects further to the ship’s internal magazine, and with heavy bulkheads to seal each of them off. The Spitfire is designed to explode away from the hull and jettison itself and damaged ammunition in the event of an uncontrolled ammunition fire. These have been built as a cooperation between Acheron Security and Reyes-Mclees Shipyards. These guns are primarily designed to deliver salvos of punishing fire against small to mid-tier threats, such as corvettes, or augment the main gun and the missiles in fire against larger threats. The guns are named Alpha through Hotel.
 
Initially, the decision was made to remove eight of the Spitfire turrets, but these were then replaced by new turrets of ONI's own design. These featured the powerful non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NNEMP) weapon from the XEV-9 Matos, used on the Sahara-class Prowler. Scaled up for use, the XEV-9 Ixion feature two of the weapons side by side. Each uses a pulse laser to induce an electromagnetic pulse on contact inflicting moderate damage and disabling electronic systems. These are often used to disable modestly sized vessels for capture or boarding, but on the Eidolon, they could barrage a target to inflict ship-wide electric failure on vessels up to cruisers in size. The individual cannons are electric lasers and do not require a chemical gain medium, reducing a dependency on carrying hazardous chemicals. The deep ammunition storage is instead replaced by a pair of stacked apparatus, along with coolant. They store multiple spare parts as replacements are difficult to build, being an auteur construction from Watershed Division. The Eidolon carries eight of these turrets, each lighter and more mobile than the heavier Spitfire batteries, but lacking their protection. These guns carry the naming scheme of the Spitfire batteries and are named India through Papa.
 
For close in protection, the Eidolon carries fifty M910 Rampart Point Defence Networks. Each of these carries four 50mm coilguns in a quad mount, with their own fire control radar and infrared sensor. Directed to their target by Eidolon's more sophisticated radar, the cannons then fill the void with a hail of fire. Each internal magazine feed swaps between tungsten-carbide penetrators and ferric-tungsten fragmentation munitions. The fragmentation munitions are programmed on reaching the chamber with their fusing distance with the intent of destroying they target by proximity. By mixing ammunition types they can face different potential threats, punching holes in heavier fighters who can ignore the flak, or tearing apart light strike craft who are too nimble to hit. The Ramparts are tasked with destroying any approaching craft or missile, used to engage Covenant Seraphs, plasma torpedoes, or other ordnance. This is the latest refined model available from Misriah.
 
Augmenting this are a network of twenty M946 Zircon point defence lasers. A next generation offering not originally installed on the Griffon-class, these were prioritised for installation as an emergency measure, denying their planned use on four prowlers. Each consists of a recessed laser module, with a pulse laser emitter. This laser activates as part of the area defence system and the AI prioritises them in combat. Incoming threats are assessed, with the most pressing dangers are prioritised to the Zircon lasers for destruction. They primarily plasma torpedoes or missiles as the laser is less effective against a shielded fighter. Each module carries its own high power infrared optic and fire control radar, though their compact size means they're heavily reliant on Eidolon's primary sensors to track threats.
 
The Eidolon also carries numerous missiles for a variety of purposes. For defence against fighter constellations, the ship carries one hundred and fifty RIM-11 Streak missiles arranged into five batteries of twenty-five missiles each. A defensive measure against incoming strike craft and missiles, their range and accuracy exceed that of the main point defence guns, but are far more limited in numbers, so must be deployed sparingly to avoid threats at long range. Each missile is a three-stage missile, with a booster to ramp the missile up to full thrust, a cruiser motor to maintain this speed over time, and a terminal motor that gives one final boost to ensure the target has less opportunities to dodge. The missile uses a combination of a hybrid-infrared sight and radar, and uses guidance support from the launch platform to improve accuracy, meaning attempts to jam or confuse the missile are not effective unless the launcher is also targeted. Upon closing to lethal distance, the warhead detonates and uses an electrically primed explosive to direct the explosive payload in the direction of its target. This payload is a dozen tungsten-carbide rods, with secondary pyrophoric effects, which create a lethal spray of shrapnel against their target. The darts explode shortly after impact themselves, with a metal-augmented charge creating a thermobaric explosion. This turns one penetrating hole into a gaping wound. Against missiles and plasma torpedoes, this is immediately lethal, and against strike craft the spray of penetrator rods and following shrapnel injure crew, depressurise the hull, and damage flight systems. The missile also carries multiple firing modes, and several of them can be fired to silently coast in a radius around the ship as a mobile minefield, to reactivate and target a threat in an instant. Each missile is stored in an unpressurised bin, and is cold launched by using a gas generator to rapidly pressurise the launcher and then depressurising the launcher by releasing the hatch. This launches the missile clear of the launch platform, from there it can then activate and reorientate itself to an interceptor course. This reduces the overall IR signature of the ship, and also masks it's firing position.
 
For long range strikes, the ship carries seventy M58 Archer pods, each carrying twenty-four RSM-131B Archer missiles, for a total of 1,680 missiles. Each Archer pod carries five missiles in a ready position, with an internal magazine carrying ready-to-fire payload arranged into six revolvers. This revolver system allows the weapon officer to select personalised warheads to particular threats, ensuring the launched missile is the most appropriate one to the current threat. It takes ten seconds for a silo to be hot swapped, and a fraction of a second for the missile to be launched. The missile can be launched hot, or cold. A cold launch distances the missile from the launch platform, and preserves the low-observable nature of the Eidolon, but a hot launch can be launched straight away, and angled to attack faster. Outside of emergency combat, cold launch is always preferable. The missile itself is a deadly instrument. A so called second-gen Archer, these were devised for the rigours of fighting the Covenant. Each missile consists of three motors, with a launch motor, that blasts it clear of the ship and reorientates it, the cruise motor, for closing at high speed and adjusting course, and finally the terminal motor for closing the final distance as rapidly as possible. The standard guidance package is an infrared sensor and a high-power radar, and uses a command link that links with the Eidolon's sensors, and its fellow missiles. This allows for missiles to be adjusted to improve spread, focus fire, or coordinate staggered impacts, maximising damage and overwhelming the target. Even if this link is severed, the guidance package is sufficient to close and attack without much fear. This guidance package can be exchanged for more basic laser guidance packages, AI-driven cruise missiles, remote-guided optical weapons, or fitted with a superheterodyne receiver and turned into an anti-radiation missile. The basic warhead fitted to the majority of the missiles is a two-stage warhead, with a first stage explosive charge utilising high-power, high-stability explosives that detonate a forged fragment ring of penetrating shards. The second stage is three explosively-launched penetrating rods that long a tungsten-carbide rod into the target, which in turn carries its own metallic augmented charge, that detonates and fires explosively formed penetrates deeper into the ship, and creates a thermobaric explosion that snuffs out oxygen, and sets alight to structures. This can be swapped out for bunker-busting ground warheads, pure explosives, octas high-energy penetrators, or more exotic warheads like the Hammerhead plasma spear, and the Efreet X-ray Warhead, both of which use nuclear warheads to produce augmented damage, but are prohibitively expensive. Despite the available options, the classic anti-ship warhead remains the most popular and available option. All missiles have been coated in cheap ablative materials, intended to buy the missile half a second of protection against point defences to close and destroy their target.
 
Finally, the Eidolon carries six Themis nuclear delivery systems. Each of these consists of an internal and armour-plated silo, from where the crew can access the missile, and swap the guidance package and warhead. The missile itself is a RSM-65 Themis, a miniaturised fusion rocket with armour plating, and a nuclear payload intended for a one-way mission. The missile carries an onboard AI, with access to the ship's systems through a command link and its own suite of decoys and deceptions. The normal guidance package is a three-part system with two optical sensors, and a radar, and infrared and radar decoys that can make it harder to pinpoint, even on terminal approach. IT can turn off its own sensors and rely on target telemetry from Eidolon to home in, or integrate with her E-WAR systems to create as much noise and chaos as possible to best improve its chances. The launcher itself is held horizontally inside the ship for best crew access, then erects itself into a ninety-degree position outside of the hull to launch. It is cold launched, and once clear of the ship, the fusion drive ignites the engine and rapidly accelerates. The fusion reactor must be fired before launch as it is not possible to ignite it after launch. The warhead is typically a W109 Shiva nuclear warhead, with a dialable yield of twenty to eighty megatons. It can also be fitted with large scale plasma spear or x-ray laser warheads, each of which is strong enough to cripple a capital ship.
 
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