Chronique:Canon Fodder - All About Anvil
Issue 155
By Alex Wakeford
Welcome back to Canon Fodder, now with more Anvil!
Our latest (and tenth!) Waypoint Chronicle released earlier this week, giving us a glimpse into a day aboard Anvil Station. Let’s dive in.
ANVIL ACCORD
Anvil lore has typically been found in the obscure margins of lore strings and wink-nod references—no more! Let us discover how the Anvil Initiative came to be and meet some of the humans and Sangheili who have come to call this place home.
Halo: Anvil Accord can be read here on Halo Waypoint, downloaded as a free PDF, or you can listen to it in audiobook format on YouTube.
March 3, 2560. The human and Sangheili crew of Anvil Station mark the seventh anniversary of the Covenant War’s end as they weigh past burdens with hope for the future.
ANVIL STATION
Assuming you’ve read or listened to the Waypoint Chronicle (if not, go check it out above—we promise we’ll still be here!), let’s talk about all things Anvil.
BLOODY BEGINNINGS
The onset of the Blooding Years in the immediate wake of the Covenant War’s end saw chaos erupt across Sanghelios. An uprising by enslaved Jiralhanae in the city-state of Ontom served as a signal flare for the fundamentalist group known as the Servants of the Abiding Truth to launch their own attack on Vadam Keep.
ONI’s then-commander-in-chief Margaret Parangosky sought to keep alien eyes off humanity by ensuring that the Sangheili remained locked in a civil war, enabling the UNSC to focus on recovery. The Kilo-Five black-ops team was deployed to arm dissident Sangheili factions and even aided in the destruction of several of the Arbiter’s own ships, with broader contingencies on the table to provide the option of committing genocide against the Sangheili through experiments with crop-induced famine, wiping out the Sangheili population to ultimately enable colonization of Sanghelios.
(The beginning of the Blooding Years is explored in the Kilo-5 Trilogy, starting with Halo: Glasslands.)
NEW HOPE
While Admiral Hood remained unaware of the full extent of Parangosky’s work, he understood that substantial efforts would be made to sabotage the UNSC’s fledgling alliance with the Arbiter—undoing efforts to bridge the gap between the two species. The Anvil Initiative was his response.
Originally an unremarkable repair and resupply station during the Covenant War, Anvil Station was retrofitted for an additional 250 operational years. Intended to serve as a base of operations for testing skunkworks prototypes and emerging Mjolnir technologies as GEN2 development began in earnest for the SPARTAN-IV program, a formal agreement with the Arbiter saw the integration of Sangheili personnel.
Anvil Station became the basis of a forward-looking partnership between emerging generations of humans and Sangheili. Personnel are primarily composed of younger individuals who have been carefully vetted and selected across a variety of disciplines, though veterans of the Covenant War from both species also serve aboard the station.
In 2553, the emergence of the Ussans—a group that had evaded the Covenant for thousands of years within an incomplete shield world known as the Refuge—marked an ideal opportunity for the Arbiter to bolster the Sangheili ranks aboard Anvil Station with individuals who had never before encountered humans or the other Covenant client species. Though the Ussans were few in number, the Arbiter believed their perspective to be invaluable, as they were unfettered by post-war political strife and xenophobia that had been nurtured by the Covenant’s caste system.
(For more on the story of the Ussans, be sure to read Halo: Broken Circle!)
RIFTBORN
Formed in 2555 by Usze ‘Taham following Operation: FAR STORM, the Riftborn are a special operations division of the Swords of Sanghelios committed to joint military operations with the UNSC.
The local presence of Riftborn operatives aboard Anvil Station takes the form of two-person teams—one human and one Sangheili—that train for a variety of combat roles, including reconnaissance, sabotage, assassination, asset denial, espionage, and other specialized tasks.
STATION LIFE
Life aboard space stations in the wake of the Covenant War boasts significantly more comfort and luxuries than the preceding centuries, due in no small part to knowledge gleaned from alien allies about how the Covenant maintained facilities among the stars for habitation. While Anvil Station’s primary function is as a military installation, its unique role in building bridges with the Swords of Sanghelios has seen it outfitted with recreation decks, gardens, and commissaries.
Many of the Sangheili who have resided aboard the station for more than a handful of years are known to refer to it as “Anvil Keep,” reflecting the extent to which they have come to think of the place as their home.
In order to maximize collaboration between human and Sangheili personnel, the decision was made early in the retrofitting process to not install a volitional artificial intelligence aboard the station—something that would prove to be an immense benefit in the wake of the Created uprising.
LEADERSHIP
The appointed leader for overseeing Anvil Station’s operation and management is Toda ‘Murajai, who holds the rank of Stationmaster. Not much of ‘Murajai’s background is widely known, though the saga of his clan is engraved on a series of stone tablets in his personal quarters.
The resident Spartan Commander is Vinay Sahil, who leads all Spartan fireteams aboard the station, as well as joint teams of Spartans and Sangheili such as the Riftborn. Born and raised in India on Earth, much of Sahil’s service record is classified—though it is known that he served as a member of the Unified Earth Government’s Diplomatic Corps and saw extensive long-term deployments to worlds in the Joint Occupation Zone carrying out relief missions, repelling pirate and insurgent attacks, and working to foster interspecies coexistence.
SPARTAN FIELD MANUAL
Originally released in 2018, the Spartan Field Manual is a detailed guide to every element of the SPARTAN program, disseminated to all newly augmented Spartan recruits (additionally featuring notes and commentary from Spartans Gabriel Thorne and Tedra Grant of Fireteam Majestic).
The Spartan Field Manual is getting an audiobook release on August 6—just over a week from now.
To enhance the audio experience, we’ve got three narrators in this book:
- Chris Henry Coffey – Narrator
- Elle Newland – Spartan Tedra Grant
- Pete Simonelli – Spartan Gabriel Thorne
If you happened to be thinking that some Scottish narration is sorely needed for this, we agree and are thrilled to confirm that Elle Newland has reprised her role from Halo 4: Spartan Ops as Spartan Tedra Grant herself!
Pre-order the Halo: Official Spartan Field Manual audiobook here.
COMMUNITY QUERIES
You asked, and we answered.
Drof497: Could you provide insight to the inclusion of certain POV chapters from Halo: Outcasts? Notably from High Axillary Sloan, Atriox, and Tam 'Lakosee?
The story of Halo: Outcasts by the one and only Troy Denning is primarily told from the point of view of Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam and Spartan Olympia Vale, but there are some chapters which diverge to explore the perspectives and experiences of other characters.
Atriox always makes a powerful impression whenever he appears. Each of his game appearances thus far have involved him crushing some iconic and powerful element of the Halo universe in his fist. In Outcasts, seeing things from his perspective served to demonstrate more of how his tactical mindset works—his process of making logical deductions while operating with minimal information and how he exploits an evolving situation without revealing his presence until the very end. (Elementary, dear Escharum!)
We were keen to highlight his multispecies crew as well, providing an interesting mirror for the Arbiter. Where Thel is seeking to unite the species of the galaxy for a grand project of peace under the Concert of Worlds, Atriox has already seen demonstrable success in unifying many under the name of the Banished.
High Auxiliary Sloan has only a single chapter in Outcasts, but we felt that he was an essential piece of the puzzle to the overall story. Sloan’s rampancy was part of why he joined the Created and his perspective afforded a glimpse into understanding that the Domain has not been the “water of life” as Cortana promised, which Halo: Epitaph delved deeper into. At this point, the Precipice story shard had revealed that Sloan became a figure of leadership for the Created after Cortana’s demise, and so Sloan’s appearance in Outcasts afforded us an opportunity for a cool throughline there.
Tam ‘Lakosee... this one hit us hard. Bringing Nizat’s story to an end was something that had to land with the emotional punch the character deserved after following his journey across three books, and there was nobody better than Tam—dear, sweet, loyal-to-a-fault Tamwise ‘Gamgee—to allow Nizat to die with what little dignity remained to him.
ARMORY INFINITUM
The gravity hammer. It’s been a franchise staple for almost twenty years now, with the Fist of Rukt’s debut in Halo 2 as the primary weapon wielded by Tartarus before the base hammer model went on to be useable in Halo 3 and beyond. Even the Didact himself had one aboard Mantle’s Approach!
The Rushdown Hammer is a weapon variant introduced in Halo Infinite, featured in the campaign upon encountering the high value target En’Geddon... but we’ve all grown ever more familiar with it in Husky Raid, grappling over to the enemy’s base to partake in a spot of what some might describe as unsportsmanlike spawn killing—as a treat!
ANNEX RIDGE | CHIEFTAIN EN’GEDDON
FWD: BROTHERHOOD
War Chief,
Executions continue for those who display insubordinate belief in their right to status without having earned their glory. Their restless ambitions have been crushed under my hammer in the fighting pits—none have been a match for the enhancements made to its gravitic core.
Atriox’s absence continues to weigh upon me. It is not enough that we lost our home system, but the one who united and gave us purpose as well. We who remain must carry out his designs, and it will take the concerted effort of every Banished brother to amount to the impact that the Warmaster alone was able to make.
I bore witness to something that renewed my resolve. The Spartan has been carving his way through our numbers, leaving outposts in ruins and reacquainting these forces with the feeling of fear after countless cycles of victory that have infested many with sloth.
As one Jiralhanae fell to the Spartan, it was a Sangheili who took up his brother’s weapon in rage and defiance to avenge him.
Our kind has quarreled with the Sangheili, fought against them with tooth and claw and blade, but it is those who have pledged themselves to the Banished that have found brotherhood which transcends species.
I do not know what afterlife may await those Banished brothers, but I am humbled by witnessing the fire of Atriox in their hearts. That is the power he possessed, and his spirit endures.
I look forward to encountering the Spartan myself. Whether he is broken under my hammer or I fall in glory, I am assured that we will prevail.
COMMUNITY LORE CORNER
Covenant Canon has done his own video exploring the lore of the Anvil Initiative prior to the Operation’s release.
JumperScape continues to do an absolutely exemplary job on their audio adaptations of our Waypoint Chronicles, their latest one following Noble Team in Halo: Winter Contention.
While not specifically lore-related, IlexEmily is a musician who has done a reaction video to several tracks from Halo 4’s absolutely glorious score by Neil Davidge and Kazuma Jinnouchi.
MegMage has completed her journey through Halo 4 and recently reacted to the Spartan Ops cinematics as she dives into Halo 5.
We hope you enjoyed spending some time on Anvil Station and meeting the individuals that may be Halo’s closest analog to Starfleet, and be sure to check out all the wonderful community videos linked above as well.
We’ll see you next month!