UNSC Beholder's Eye

Given the technological superiority of the Covenant fleet, the UNSC has been forced to adopt less conventional strategies and tactics in their efforts to counter the Covenant's inevitable conquest of the colonies. In their efforts, it has become obvious that while the UNSC's full warships have performed rather poorly, their lighter ships have fared much better. The C709 Longsword has proven itself particularly effective, and in battles where Carriers took part, the UNSC has enjoyed an improved kill-to-death ratio.
Project: ENGADINE was an attempt at converting existing ships into modified Carriers, improving their fighter/bomber capacity at the expense of weapons and troop capacity. Formerly the Halcyon-class cruiser UNSC Eye Of The Tiger, the UNSC Beholder's Eye was the first of the ships produced, and while it proved itself to be a successful Carrier, it was also the last. The rest of the Halcyon-class were put into storage to await decommissioning, and the project was later cancelled in favour of developing improvements to existing weaponry to improve its effectiveness against the Covenant. The ship continued to serve in the UNSC Navy, but was destroyed in 2552 during the Battle of Reach.
== History ==
As with the rest of the class, the Beholder's Eye was designed by Doctor Robert McLees, and approved by FLEETCOM for commissioning. Its sole point of interest was its unique system of internal titanium-vanadium bracings, which would allow it to withstand devastating strikes, as well as its heavy compartmentalisation, improving reaction times to hull breaches. other than that, the Halcyon-class was one of the less successful designs used by the UNSC Navy. When the ships were withdrawn from service, few mourned their passing.
The Beholder's Eye was not one of them, however. Part of Project: ENGADINE, the Beholder's Eye was an experiment conducted by the Office of Naval Intelligence, Naval Special Weapons division, in the conversion of existing serving ships into makeshift Carriers. While standard armaments, such as the Archer missile and the standard MAC, had proven less than competent against Covenant ships, smaller ships such as the C709 Longsword, the D77 Pelican, and the Shortsword Bomber and SkyHawk Fighter had demonstated their effectiveness against their counterparts to the extent that ONI considered it worthwhile expanding the Navy's number of Carriers significantly. During the refit, much of the internal structure, with the exception of the bracings, was gutted to make room for the additional hangars, personnel quarters, mission briefing rooms, storage facilities, and an improved Combat Information Centre. The reactor was replaced by a more effective design, and its thrusters were upgraded and supplemented by an improved Thrust-Vectoring Rotational-Control-System. The hangar bays themselves made maximum use of space, able to store and maintain up to five Longswords at a time, though three was more common. Given the emphasis on fighter support, rather than troop transport, the Beholder's Eye carried only a small number of Pelicans for use as light shuttles, though it also carried 24 Shortsword bombers, capable of delivering heavy ordnance in support of ground operations.
Reentering service, the Beholder's' Eye found itself one of very few Halcyon-class ships still operating. The ship had already fought in the Battle of Harvest, but had not proven very effective against the Covenant. In later battles, however, its upgrades would prove enormously advantageous - while smaller than most serving Carriers, it provided significant space superiority fighter support during the battles for the Inner Colonies, up until the Battle of Delta Pavonis, where it took heavy damage in action above the asteroid colony. Still functional, the ship was assigned to the Reach Naval Shipyards for repair and refit, especially modernisation of its electronics, sensors, navigation and TADS systems. It was still in drydock in August, 2552, when the Covenant invaded Reach, and was destroyed along with the shipyards by ONI agents to prevent Covenant boarding teams from accessing its navigational databanks.
== Design ==
The Beholder's Eye features the internal network of reinforced titanium-vanadium bracings, characteristic of the Halcyon-class. It was this feature that led ONI to select it to serve as a conversion testbed - as a Carrier, it would neccessarily feature less armaments, and be forced to rely on alternative defences available to it. These were left in place during the refit process, with the internal decks, corridors, and hangars inserted around it. The refit also removed the MAC that the ship was equipped with, and reduced the number of Archer missile pods to 12, though it increased the number of CIWS turrets for point-defence.
Internally, the Beholder's Eye featured a larger number of personnel quarters for the ships crew, maintenance personnel, pilots and crew chiefs. It also possessed 24 hangars, similar in most regards to the originals, but with the capacity enhanced. Previously, it had featured ceiling-mounted Pelican docking cradles to the sides of the hangars, and a single VTOL platform for a Longsword. This configuration was alterred, removing the Pelican hangar bays in all but one hangar, allowing each to carry up to five Longswords, although five was a more normal number, with an additional Shortsword strike bomber docked for atmospheric support missions.
== Quotes ==
* "You look at it, and you think "oh god, not one of them." There's no external difference between it and the regular Halcyon-class. External. Internally, its revolutionary in comparison!"
* "My cousin was attached to the 445th Naval Fighter Squadron, attached to the Beholder's Eye, so I heard a lot of good things about it. Apparently, even the Covenant mistook it for a standard Halcyon. Their mistake!"
* "Most ships larger than a frigate aren't really adapted to atmospheric travel, but I swear this thing swooped by right over us at Pavo Prime. Though, of course, there was no atmosphere at Pavo Prime - asteroid colonies are funny that way, heh."
* "Its a damned shame it bit the dust at Reach. Never even made it to the action. We could have really done with its fighter support at Earth."
Category:Cruisers
Category:Individual UNSC Ships