 In the 26th century, humanity draws the wrath of a conglomerate of alien races. This "Covenant" is intent on exterminating the human race, which they view as a religious affront. Still an fledgling interstellar race, humanity is constantly pushed back by the overwhelming numbers and furor of the Covenant. The only thing keeping the human race fighting is the fact that the Covenant do not know the location of Earth. Instead all operations are carried out from the planet Reach. Ships in danger of capture are required to self-destruct or make "blind" hyperspace jumps away from Earth. The humans do have a few tricks up their sleeves, though. The best is the SPARTAN-II program, designed to forge elite soldiers through genetic modification. A plan is launched to use the SPARTAN-II soldiers to infiltrate a Covenant ship and discover the location of the alien homeworld. But the plan fails, and the SPARTAN-II soldiers return to Reach for cybernetic modification to attempt the plan again. But the Covenant are just as devious, and launch a surprise attack on Reach, destroying many of the human fleet ships. Only the Pillar of Autumn manages to escape, making a blind jump away from Earth in the hope that the Covenant will follow and not search Reach for the location of Earth. The plan works, but the Covenant make it to the jump point before the Pillar of Autumn, and launch another attack. In desperation, Captain Keyes orders the "Hushed Coffin" unsealed, and the last surviving SPARTAN-II soldier, known only by his rank of Master Chief, is awakened from cryogenic stasis. His orders are to protect the Pillar of Autumn s AI construct, Cortana, from capture, so that the Covenant can t retrieve Earth s location from it. The Pillar of Autumn is abandoned, and the Master Chief and the surviving crew members find themselves stranded on an artificial ringworld, Halo. Faced with superior numbers and a seemingly inexhaustible alien fleet, the survivors must make their final stand on this ancient alien world. But Halo hides a secret, The Flood, a weapon so powerful it could destroy the galaxy. Can the Master Chief overcome impossible odds and stop both the Covenant and the Flood? Humanity s fate rests in the hands of one genetically modified cybernetic soldier.