Snooze Drifting

"Snooze Drifting" is a term used to describe a last-resort tactic taken by crippled and heavily damaged human space vessels. It involves placing the ship's surviving crew into cryosleep while the ship itself drifts aimlessly with the hope that they will eventually be rescued. The practice only became frequent during the , where it was commonplace for nearly entire human fleets to be wiped out, leaving many damaged ships with little choice but to put themselves into cryosleep and hope for rescue. Snooze drifting would become almost unheard of in the UNSC after the establishment of the , but would still be seen with some Insurrectionist vessels that engaged the Covenant, like the URF Flying Dutchman. There were also some cases of snooze drifting prior to the Human-Covenant War, but they were few and far between, with most of these cases occurring after a small number of engagements during the era.
==History==
===Early Colonial Era===
The earliest known example of snooze drifting was that of smuggler and mercenary Lance Floyd, who went missing in 2406 after being left drifting by pirates, only to reappear in 2554 after being found and taken prisoner by Kig-Yar pirates. He was taken into brief custody by the 's Monolith Division before being released after a month of recovery and questioning. As of 2559, he held the record for the longest cryosleep in human history, at 148 years. However, this feat was kept under wraps by ONI, attempting to force Floyd himself to comply with this to some success, before quietly making it public in 2558. 
Aside from Lance Floyd, the only recorded incident of snooze drifting prior to the Insurrection took place in 2443, aboard the transport ship MSV Aretha. The vessel had suffered a critical engine failure, and, desperate, the crew entered cryosleep and set a distress beacon. However, the cryotubes failed during the 9 year period they were left drifting, so when they were finally discovered by the CMA Matena, the entire crew was dead. The events that had transpired aboard the ship were only recovered via data logs left behind by the crew.
===Insurrection===
Even during the Insurrection, snooze drifting was fairly uncommon. Most space battles ended with the boarding or destruction of crippled vessels. However, there were several cases of damaged vessels snooze drifting. The majority of these were URF vessels, as they would often employ ambush tactics against the UNSC, meaning they would often be farther away and out of close range of their bases in the event their ambush failed. This was not helped by the fact that UNSC ships tended not to bother finishing off or boarding crippled picket ships, most often ignoring or not noticing any life signs still aboard, leaving them behind. The URF, on the other hand, was eager to take resources and thus would try to board UNSC ships whenever possible, making UNSC cases of snooze drifting during the Insurrection fairly rare.
===Human-Covenant War===
===Post-War===
==Legality==
For most of its history, there were no laws or regulations that restricted the use of 'Snooze Drifting'. Indeed, the entire concept of the practice was acknowledged as being closer to theories than clear, definable proof for the better part of four hundred years. Because of this, UEG law has never officially covered it until the 2550s. The closest representation to regulation was part of the government's guidelines under subsection 4 of the Slipstream Exploration Protocols, which detailed that all missing explorers (and later, freighter crews) must delete all sensitive information regarding humanity and activate their ship's mandatory emergency beacon prior to cryofreezing.
However, the loss of so many colonies during the Human-Covenant War and the chaotic nature of the , many civilian analysts and military officers pressured government with developing a proper set of procedures that should be carried out. As a result, this gave rise to the '', more commonly known as the Charet Directives. In its most basic form, it states that every member of the state, from civilian merchants to soldiers to visiting alien dignitaries, have a responsibility to report and/or return any Snooze-Drifters to any organisation given a Class II UEG Authorisation Code - essentially, public hospitals, military facilities, law enforcement stations, official government buildings, and some private organisations. These restrictions are in place to reduce the number of deaths that could result from an improperly-conducted revival, as well as give the snooze drifters adequate training to reintegrate themselves into the new society, depending on the length of time they were left drifting. In addition, the acquisition of even deceased individuals is used to give closure to families who never knew what happened to their relatives. To help encourage people to follow these protocols, the UEG offers a bounty for anyone that reports or returns Snooze Drifters - a lengthy vertification process ensures that this cannot be (easily) exploited.
Failure to follow the specific instructions provided - which are required to be found in the medical station of all starships built after the Directives came into effect in - incurs significant penalties on the offenders. Anyone who fails to comply with the Directives may face a maximum of ten years imprisonment, a fine of up to $250,000 ($15,000,000 for infringing organisations), and the immediate revoke of their starship and/or salvaging licenses, which can be temporary or permanent. If an attempted revival leads to a fatality, manslaughter or murder charges may be applied, which can result in a death-sentence being applied. This is enforced throughout Human Space; however, because of territorial conflictions which have arisen with colonies that have survived the war, many residents within the Outer Colonies have been able to avoid punishment thanks to the UNSC's difficulty with enforcing the UEG's laws throughout space.
==Examples==
* - Possibly the most famous example of snooze drifting, the Forward Unto Dawn was a fairly extreme case. The ship had been split in half after the , with the aft section left drifting for nearly five years.
* - After giving up its slipspace drive in order to destroy , the UNSC Spirit of Fire was forced to drift in unknown space for a little over 28 years before ending up at in 2559.
*Lapse of Reason - A modified transport vessel captained by smuggler and privateer Lance Floyd, it was heavily damaged during a skirmish with pirates in 2406. Floyd was forced to go into cryosleep and hope for rescue, and ended up floating in space for nearly 150 years before being discovered by Kig-Yar slavers. The ship remains the longest case of snooze drifting in recorded history. 
*DFC Škotovudet - A transport vessel operated by the Theban Naval Service that was damaged following a botched withdrawal from in 2526 and forced to drift. By the time of its recovery in 2551, 16 of its 43 occupants had passed away in their cryopods. The survivors of the vessel included Alexandr Novak.
*URF Flying Dutchman - The URF Flying Dutchman was heavily damaged during an engagement with Covenant picket ships in 2535, forcing its crew to enter cryosleep. They were eventually discovered by Kig-Yar scavengers in 2546, and the crew were taken as slaves, only being freed after the Theban Defence Forces launched a major raid against the Kig-Yar group in late 2555. Ultimately, of the ship's approximately 500 original crew members, only 23 survived the entire ordeal. The accounts of the survivors were compiled into a bestselling book that was released in 2556.