Prologue — Part 1
Midnight Facility, Epsilon Eradini System
Halo Wars 2 begins with an introductory fade from white, revealing the glassed orb that was Reach. Although the planet is no longer aflame, it is still as barren and lifeless as any other world glassed by the Covenant during the war. As the camera slowly pans onto Reach, text fades into the screen.
After twenty seven years of terrible genocide, the Human-Covenant War came to an end in 2552.
The text temporary fades away as the camera cuts to the surface of Reach, revealing a small ONI facility, composed of a trapdoor hangar leading underground surrounded by an array of turrets, basking under the shadow of a mangled mountain. It is the Midnight Facility.
However, even by 2558, aftershocks still rage on.
The text fades away, and a Sahara-class ONI Prowler emerges from the sky and hovers over the trapdoor. The trapdoor slowly opens like an iris, and the Prowler descends inside. The doors seal behind it.
Countless remnant factions lurk the stars, insurrections throughout all species destabilize galactic unity.
The camera cuts to inside of the facility, providing a view of the back of the Prowler. It’s ventral exit opens, and six Spartan-IV’s escort a pair of prisoners from the Prowler. One is an unknown Sangheili, and the other is Daniel Clayton. The Spartans and the prisoners move offscreen, and the camera continues to view the Prowler.
Where the Sangheili remain divided in a conflict between the Arbiter and the Covenant Remnant, humanity has fallen into civil war between the United Nations Space Command and a dangerous insurrection named the 'New Colonial Alliance.'
The camera then cuts to the Spartans and the prisoners. The Spartans continue to escort the prisoners, taking them down a narrow stretch of darkened hallways—lined completely by prison cells. Each cell is two meters by two meters, and separated from the hallway by an impenetrable shield of hardlight.
Started by a rogue admiral named Mattius Drake, the New Colonial Alliance represents a greater threat to galactic peace than what remains of the Covenant.
The Spartans stop at a cell, the hardlight door dissipates. Daniel Clayton is shoved inside.
And they are everywhere.
The hardlight door at Clayton’s cell reforms, and the Spartans proceed to shove the Sangheili inside of the next cell over. The camera then cuts to an anecdote of the events in the first three issues of Halo: Escalation.
In February 2558, the NCA employed a Covenant mercenary faction to interrupt vital peace talks between the Swords of Sanghelios and the Jiralhanae. War would breakout between the two sides just months later.
The camera then cuts to an anecdote of the next three issues of Escalation.
One month later, the NCA would capitalize on the disappearance of the Spirit of Fire to lure the UNSC Infinity into a trap.
The camera returns to Midnight Facility, showing Daniel Clayton inside of his cell through the semi-transparent hardlight door.
Although the NCA would suffer defeat, and the mercenary faction would be eliminated, the Spirit of Fire was never found by Infinity.
Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood and Vice Admiral Serin Osman approach the cell. Clayton stares at Hood, and triumphantly smiles.
But the NCA has its roots set deep in the Spirit of Fire’s disappearance, and finding it could be the key to ending the unstoppable rebellion.