Guardian of Norma

The Guardian of Norma is a huge battle station that also doubled as a shipyard. It was commissioned by commanders of the Forerunner guarding the regions around the Norma Arm, viewed as an early stage of the Shield World plan the and his rate created to defend the against the returning . The station would be abandoned during the war with the Flood and left for thousands of years as a monument of the Forerunners military might. It would later be discovered through an old by the Ember Coalition, closely followed by the UNSC, the Sangheili Alliance, and the Crimson Circle.
==History==
===Before and during the Forerunner-Flood war===
The Guardian of Norma was created as part of a very early sketch of the Warrior-Servants plan to create Shield Worlds throughout Ecumene controlled space to battle the coming war with the returning Flood. The Guardian of Norma, however, never saw much use during the actual war due to rise to power as of the , the ruling body of the galaxy-wide Forerunner Empire. As First Councilor, Faber demanded the Warriors-Servants armies and fleets to disband over thousands of years, leaving the primary military arm of the Ecumene with fewer and fewer resources to the point where the rate more or less had lost all its political power and absorbed into the Builders own military, . The Guardian of Norma was completed just before the Warrior-Servant rate were diminished and were left floating in space where it had been constructed. 
The Guardian would stay abandoned up until the closing years of the war when a large group of Forerunner refugees rediscovered it and sought shelter there from the advancing Flood parasite and its ally,, that had cut them off from the rest of the galaxy. The refugees desperately reactivated the station's defensive systems and ordered it to begin mass production of various kinds of sentinels, Enforcers, and warships, mainly the Z-920 Medium Cruiser as it was the shipyards primary production line.
The Station would successfully fend off many Flood assaults during the last days before the Halo firing due to the Flood collective mind would deem the station of minor importance compared to the threat posed by the Halos. When the Halo array finally fired the Forerunners residing within the Guardian of Norma were all, like everyone else in the galaxy, killed and their bodies destroyed down to the molecular level. The station would be left in orbit of a gas giant in a star system near the border to Galactic Core in the Norma Arm.
==Weapon systems==
The Guardian of Norma is armed with hundreds of thousands of weapons that covers its surface, everything from the focus turret to the massive particle cannon and even then it also had a much larger weapon at it bottom known as the mega particle cannon that could incinerate the entire surface of a planet in one shot.
The Z-8060 Particle Cannons are mostly located around the sphere sections axis along with the three pillar-like structures. The particle cannons around the axis of the sphere placed in between two docking bays/shipyards as heavy protection against enemy capital ships seeking to dock or deploy boarding ships. Three particle cannons on the lower parts and two on the upper parts of the three pillar sections make it hard to find blind spots for larger vessels to exploit. Each Z-8060 Particle Canon is defended with dozens of Z-8250 Light and Heavy Artillery to fend off fighters and bombers. These smaller artillery platforms are spread out over the entire surface of the station, making it extremely hard to approach the station without suffering from large amounts hostile fire. It was once noted by one of the Forerunner refugees that the when the station showed off its full combat capabilities against a larger Flood assault fleet it reminded him of a star as the void was filled with so many orange colored particle rounds and beams that the station looked like it had been swallowed hole by a star.
Though the Guardian of Norma has an impressive array of weapons to defend itself from hostile fleets its main weapon is the Mega Particle Canon. The canon draws large amounts of energy from the stations power plants within the sphere section and down the tree pillar sections where it built up the particles within a magnetic field generated from three massive stabilizers near the bottom of the pillars. When fully charged the field change shape and allow the built up ionized particles to launch at high speed in a huge linear beam towards anything unfortunate to in the beams way. Most things will be outright vaporized while planet surfaces will be swallowed firestorms.
==Other defenses==
Apart from the many artillery platforms it's also able to store a massive amount of Forerunner light and medium class warships, though it's unable to build the larger capital ships that served during the war like the , and hundreds of thousands of sentinels that Forerunner refugees used to boost the station's defenses.
The station was created with the idea of being able to support and reinforce other Forerunner positions around the Norma Arm, the Galactic Core and the neighboring arms with Sentinels and warships. As such, it was able to produce large quantities of smaller warships and was house a sizable fleet within its docking bays.
The Refugees made sure that the Guardian of Norma would continue to produce warships and sentinels to its maximum capacity. and would launch its fleet of light and medium-sized ships and countless sentinels out to battle the Flood infected ships that got too close to it. The station did, however, have a special designed Sentinel that it used as fighters and bombers, the sentinel variant known as the Norma Sentinel. This Sentinel would make up the bulk of the stations fighter class vessels that would support its many dozens of Z-920 Medium Cruisers and Picket Cruisers.
==Hull==
The Guardians hull is extremely tough and can take extraordinary amounts of damage with as much as a scratch. The first layer of armor was a 50-meter thick layer of Forerunner metal plating, an extremely dense and strong material that could withstand large amounts of damage without showing any signs of breaking. Beneath this layer was a second layer made of Hard Light that could be shifted into different forms or moved to reinforce vulnerable locations in the hull if the need arose.
==Sections==
The Guardian of Norma can roughly be broken down into four sections a sphere section, where all crucial facilities were located such as command center,living quarters, power plants and the many types of construction/production facilities, and three large triangular shaped pillars/towers that generally housed docking bays and the majority of the stations artillery platforms.
===Sphere section===
The sphere section can be said to be the beating heart and brain of the Guardian of Norma. with its nearly 100 kilometers wide diameter, it houses everything a Forerunner Warrior-Servant ever could dream of. War rooms, training grounds and labs for studying new weapon technologies and the Flood parasite could found throughout this section as well as the, by and UNSC standards, huge shipyards. At the very heart of the sphere was the massive power plant located. A power plant that could power tens of thousands of the Covenants holy capital, High Charity. The power plant supplied more than enough power to the entire station but was also the power source behind the Mega Particle Canon through huge power cables that ran from the heart of the sphere out into the three pillar sections and down to the bottom of the station where the huge weapon would be fired.
===Pillar sections===
The station sport three triangular sections that are the primary locations of the stations defenses as well as where the stations fleet is stored. The pillars also act as stabilizers for the Mega Particle Canon at their bottom, creating the energy field keeping the ionized particles contained, and the slipspace portal generator located at the very top of the station. Both systems draw power from the power plant deep within the sphere section.
==facilities==
===Shipyard===
The Guardian of Norma Is equipped with six large shipyards located around the axis of the sphere section and produces all of the stations warships. Although they can only construct light and medium sized Forerunner ships some of these ships would be classified as larger capital ships by UNSC and Covenant standards. The Z-920 medium Cruiser, the biggest ship the Guardian can produce, have a length of nearly 2.000 meters but is still only a medium cruiser by Forerunner classifications.
===Sentinel manufacturing facility===
The Guardian housed many Sentinel manufacturing facilities that were able to built everything from the small Constructor Sentinel to the huge Retriever Sentinel. It used many kinds of sentinels to defend and maintain itself along with gathering the resources it needed to further construct additional sentinels and warships. 
===Weapon and armor manufacturing facilities===
the Guardian of Norma also had numerous facilities dedicated to the production of small arms and body armor. During their brief occupation of the station, the Ember Coalition were able to outfit countless of their elite troops with Forerunner Hard Light weaponry, primarily the and the , and Forerunner armor. These troops would later be given the name Magma Guards. These weapon and armor facilities were planned to supply the Forerunner ground forces with nearly unlimited weapons to replace damaged or lost equipment.
==Gallery==
Maxresdefault17.jpg|The Guardian of Norma and its huge defense fleet
Star Forge wapen.png|The Guardian firing its Mega Particle Canon at a planet
Category:Vadumverse
Category:Forerunner Artifacts in Vadumverse
Category:Forerunner
Category:Space Stations