Artemis-class battlecruiser

"Once our fleets have linked themselves with their respective flagships, I don't see how anything smaller than that Assault Carrier can survive past the first barrage."

- Captain Shannon Hambleton.

The Artemis-class battlecruiser (: CB) is a model of heavy capital ship utilised by the in the latter half of the. One of the most powerful ships for its size, the Artemis is based off the frame of a heavily-modified. As a result, it shares its cousin's emphasis on speed and firepower at the expense of durability. It is also a technologically advanced warship, incorporating the latest in weapons, scanners and power generation systems to allow it to destroy almost any opponent that has the misfortune to be designated as targets. These qualities make it uniquely suited to the role of artillery, staying away from the thick of combat to pick off opposing capital ships. Their advanced sensors and array of stealth technologies allow them to find success as a heavy patrol ship, searching systems with low intelligence to hunt for valuable Covenant commanders and material.

Developed concurrently with the failed Lelantos-class battleship, the Artemis-class battlecruiser was unveiled to the public in late- and quickly showed promise during its early tests. Although looked down by most strategists because of its vulnerability when directly engaged, the Artemis ' design saw it becoming one of the ships best-suited to fighting a superior enemy. Responsible for a number of early successes ranging from the destruction of a to assisting UNSC forces in pushing off the Covenant advance during the, these battlecruisers were soon attached to every major battlegroup and became a common piece in mid-war propaganda. Although many would rack up enough kills to become as renowned as the surviving supercarriers, they would prove to be too expensive and difficult to produce in the numbers the UNSC required. Their effectiveness against the Covenant's heavy warships would work against them, with many Fleetmasters immediately identifying them as priority targets. As a result, these battlecruisers were deployed sparingly, often leading offensive strike fleets to ensure that their eventual destruction would not affect the morale of planetary defence groups.

After the end of the Human-Covenant War, the entire class would undergo a massive refit to bring them above modern standards, along with a new block authorised as part of the Lovejoy-Rén Act to replace those lost in the war. Retooled into a heavy reconnaissance and survey ship, the Artemis currently plays a key part in reclaiming humanity's dominion, and are destined to remain so for much of the foreseeable future.

Exterior
With a silhouette resembling a cross between a monolithic cruiser and a frigate, the Artemis could be easily mistaken for a from a distance, but this similarity quickly disappears upon closer inspection. The Artemis maintains a consistent rectangular profile, with overlapping plates protecting the points of attachment for the superstructure. Most early battlecruisers are distinguished by their rather lean build and their black hull, although later members would only sport this paint on specific missions, as the cost of the stealth plating was expensive to maintain. Secondary antennae were mounted all over the ship, paired with sensor dishes to grant full 360o view of the ship of varying quality.

The bow is dominated by two massive prongs, divided along the centre much like those on the smaller frigates. Both the top and bottom prow are heavily armoured, as they house the advanced MACs that the battlecruiser relied on to dish out damage. Both prongs had an array of antennae and dishes for the sensor and targeting systems, although only the bottom had the powerful gravitic scanners it needs to detect prey at extended distances. Between the prow are massive capacitors which store excess power from the reactors. As their position is notoriously vulnerable to bombers, eight M870 point-defence gun mounts are fitted there, although only four would usually be in use due to concerns about the tight space potentially damaging the turrets. At the bottom of the lower prow is a protruding structure that held additional capacitors to retain a charge for the ship's weapon. The back of the prongs are covered by a thin shield of armour, extended forwards to better protect the section where the prongs were attached to the superstructure.

The midsection, at first glance, appears better armoured than the bow because of the extra plating overlaid over the main hull at the top and bottom. This is somewhat false, as while the extra depleted Uranium armour does add more protection, the Titanium-A2 layer is only ninety centimetres at its thickest point. Below this is a lightly-armoured indentation, with six comparatively small doors, four on an upper floor and two on the lower, that lead to long cargo-bays which are wide enough to accommodate a Longsword bomber. Both the doors and the surrounding area are armoured only with a thin layer of Vanadium steel rather than Titanium-A2 to reduce costs and proved to be an exceptionally vulnerable section which is so often targeted by bomber squadrons. If the Artemis does not require a space fighter escort, these can be condensed into a single massive hangar rated for supporting the deployment of a Sloop- or, with all the equipment needed to keep them in the field for longer. At the very bottom of the ship are the drop bays.

Interior
Despite mimicking the same industrial decor theme that is consistent across the UNSC ships of its time, the interior of this class does display some differences. With the exception of the uniform service corridors which allow engineers access to vital parts of the ship, the rooms are taller and wider than normal, even in places where cargo is unlikely to be trafficked through. The floor, walls, and ceiling are made up of panels which can be easily removed to access the desired component, with the panels deliberately made either different in design or with different materials to make it easy to guess what lies beneath. The decor tends to preferred a cluttered look on a finished surface, painted with contrasting colours within the white, grey and black spectrum.

The midship is divided into eleven levels, with seven additional sub-levels, which are connected to each other through stairways, elevators and maintenance corridors. The levels closer to the ship's exterior are used for handling cargo and cryogenic storage, with levels One and Eleven being completely devoted to the storage of the ship's consumables, such as fuel, food, and water. Eleven also has access to the launch tubes. The five main cryobays are located on levels Two and Ten, as they have the infrastructure to rapidly launch the ship's entire complement within a few minutes, although smaller cryobays capable of holding only fifteen individuals are located towards the centre of the vessel. Levels Three, Eight and Nine are typically where the bulk of the engineering work, as they extend all the way towards the MAC guns to the engines. There is little different with Level Four, however, it is notable as it has the sleeping quarters for the crew to rest, as their need for sleep is not met by being placed in a cryotube. Level Five exists solely to distribute personnel and material around, and as such its relatively easy to navigate one's way around the ship. The barracks for the Marines and ODSTs, as well as detention centres, are also located here. Level Seven is the main administrative level, with the Combat Information Centre (CIC), command bridge and meeting chambers for specific area commands being present on this level. Level Six is a mix between levels Five and Seven, having access to more specific area commands and still being partly responsible for moving cargo across the ship.

Located within the middle of the ship's "shoulder" - the elevated structure which separates the bow from the midship - lies the "brain" of the battlecruiser, the Combat Information Centre. It is here where all the high-level orders are issued, such as directing where the ship needs to go, when to fire and how to respond to battlefield conditions. The CIC is divided into two levels, with the larger top floor housing the stations used for the warship's general duties and the bottom for managing damage-control, engineering management, and complement. The bridge is arranged in a semi-circular form, with the individual stations surrounding the command organisation equipment in the centre. A wall is installed behind here, where a wide touchscreen is installed which can either display the navigation data with streamlined ship data, or the various statistics from the various stations. Should the captain prefer a three-dimensional hologram of the relevant data, or intends to share a visual representation of a plan with their crew, a large holotable is located in a large room behind the main bridge.

Propulsion and Powerplants
Like nearly all other examples of human spacefaring vessels, the Artemis is pushed along by ten fusion drives powered directly by the ship's massive reactor, arranged into two large drives in the centre and eight far smaller models, four on each side. The propellants, which are the elements created by the fusion of, are superheated by the output of the reactor, transforming into plasma before being rapidly compressed and flung out at high speeds. Though much of the gas is lost to space, a series of magnets and negatively-charged capacitors are mounted outside to recapture some of the plasma to be recycled.

The actual mechanisms which power the ship as a whole are the two V6/XH-DFR TEMPEST dual-chamber reactors and the singular S67/LCU Fusion Drive. A custom model that is more thoroughly reinforced, the TEMPESTs are thickened with pressure-resistant and heat-resistant alloys, providing some protection against heat-based energy weapons. It has multiple redundancies to continue to function even while heavily damaged, such as being able to isolate sections of itself at reduced efficiency. The TEMPESTs' unusually-thick insulation layer, along with its multiple conduits linking the two chambers, allows it to be safely overclocked to provide one-and-a-half times as much energy as what can be usually extracted. This can be further enhanced by the navigation officer's override, which floods the reactor with additional Deuterium to run at three times the output and give out a noticeable increase in speed. Unfortunately, as well as significantly reducing the operational range of the battlecruiser, the TEMPESTs' will also reach meltdown levels within seven minutes of over-clocked use. After the war, this model had been modified to allow it to feature the revolutionary cooling system derived from the, completely nullifying heat concerns even in combat.

The S67/X/CU fusion reactor, on the other hand, is an even more specialised model that is far more resilient than the main reactors. Manufactured by Boglin Fields, the enlarged S67 combat-upgraded model is built with insulated motor-plate layers that can efficiently block any holes from weapons that hit it, sliding over the hole to and releasing an Antimony compound fluid to magnetically seal it; essentially, the only way to disable it is to shut off the Deuterium supply. Unlike the TEMPESTs, this allows the S67 to continue outputting at near-maximum no matter how badly damaged. As the S67 is slow at adjusting its output, the computer for controlling takes into account the readiness level the ship is operating at - at yellow, the reactor starts up to low settings, while at red it is operating at moderate to high capacity.

Powered by these two reactor systems is the Artemis ' primary propulsion system - two Apex-VI 508C fusion drives. Created specifically for the battlecruiser, the Apex-VI has three modes of use depending on how much power is redirected to it. The most useful setting is its "stealth mode", where it employs a number of systems to minimise the number of detectable emissions leaving it. These are so effective that at low outputs they do not give out any radiation, making it appear as if the engines are inactive in this setting, yet they must be constantly maintained and replaced after each mission. Once the output increases beyond 35% of its maximum recommended output, the more fragile bafflers are absorbed into the hull, where the drives maintain a balance between speed and stealth. However, as it does not have the benefits of invisibility nor maximum speed, few captains use it, instead they jump straight into its performance mode. Using a mixture of pressure boilers and magnetic acceleration, the engines can produce enough thrust to keep pace with a destroyer roughly half its size.

Also connected up to these two reactors are numerous vectoring thrusters mounted all over the ship. Capable of pushing the battlecruiser up to a velocity of 682 metres/second2 per side, these miniature fusion drives provide the bulk of the turning power available to the Artemis ' crew under normal conditions. There are forty thrusters in total, with every side except the aft having eight of these propulsion systems installed. Most of these drives are further amplified by the addition of a variable turret which directs the thrust in a 175o cone above the hull. This new system offers several significant advantages over the cheaper system of having them mounted below the armour, from increasing the speed it can turn, to reduce the amount of fuel needed to make a change in course. While the heavily-armoured construction that allows them to survive the high temperatures of the fusion emissions also makes them surprisingly-resilient against enemy fire, they are slow at readjusting. In addition, damage can jam the turret's rotating platform, leaving them in a fixed position until they are repaired or removed. In light of this vulnerability, the base of the turrets is designed to detach, allowing the thrusters to resort to the conventional system.

For faster-than-light travel, the battlecruiser is outfitted with an experimental Mark 37F Alpha-Series-FTL-226 backed up by a Second-Generation Lifeboat SFTE. Developed within the in the, the Mark 37F is the most advanced slipstream engine built at the time of the Artemis ' launch. Built using components recovered from recovered Covenant slipspace drives, the drive is a massive leap forward, giving reduced drag, being more accurate and faster to start up. Although the exact means on how it works are not known, it generates some sort of repulsion field which works in conjunction with the typical 'slipspace shielding' bubble to allow the warship to weave through slipspace with less force than before. This latter field serves a secondary function by resisting the Chekhov radiation given out by nukes, giving HIGHCOM a reason to authorise these ships to carry a single even on stealth missions. With all this said, Mark 37Fs cannot always be built as they are completely reliant on enough of the necessary components being scavenged from the debris field. As a result, its not infrequent for battlecruisers to rely on their robust Lifeboat SFTE for interstellar travel after commissioning or repairs. Although small even by human standards and durable enough to take a beating, Lifeboat SFTEs are sluggish, slow to charge and painfully inaccurate.

Although the UNSC would loath to admit it, there will always be the chance that in combat the Artemis could be incapacitated, either by accident or through enemy interaction. To reactivate its fusion reactors, each of the main fusion reactors are linked up to two isolated capacitors. Hardened against EMP radiation and reinforced against sabotaged, the capacitors are intended to discharge as much power as possible within the shortest time frame, releasing up to twice the amount of energy normally needed to jump-start the fusion process within even the powerful TEMPEST reactors. Only one is ever directly connected to the ship's power supply, with the second stored elsewhere to make it difficult for the enemy - human, Covenant or AI - to completely disable the battlecruiser. A second backup lies within its complement of backup chemical batteries. Although considered crude and pathetic by modern standards, when they are all activated they can provide enough power to run emergency lighting, life support and propulsion for at least seventy-four hours. A final, less-efficient solution comes from radiation-conversion nodes installed in the hull. Intended to partially solve the problem in how the refractive coating amplifies heat signatures, the nodes work by converting the various forms of heat into electricity, sinking it within the battlecruiser's subsystems. If a wide array of conditions are met, the nodes can provide a maximum of 0.0421% additional power to its systems - not a large number, but enough to charge backup batteries and capacitors. All these backups mean that a battlecruiser is incredibly resistant to sabotage, even without taking into account that its computer circuits are resistant to EMP pulses.

If the battlecruiser needed a sudden burst in speed that its fusion drives could not achieve, a number of Pascade high-pressure canisters were built under the armour with portholes breaching through it. As a highly flammable and reactive gas with Rubidium at its core, Pascade ignited with extreme force when exposed to Oxygen. This gave out a huge amount of force, enough to give the Artemis a maximum turning speed of 35o per second, or propelling the warship to high speeds in any direction. However, as the only producer of the gas is an obscure company called TerraTek, it is not readily available and the canisters had to sometimes be filled with a less-effective substitute such as solid instead.

Armament
"Our cruisers killed in an instant? Lies! The blasphemers are not worthy to wield such power!"

- Brute Shipmaster Vexus, witnessing his fleet being annihilated by a trio of Artemis battlecruisers.

The entire ship's superstructure is built around its two experimental 38G1S2 Series-VI Super-Heavy-Coil Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, an incredibly powerful model which has been featured only on the Artemis-class. Clocking in at 820 metres long, it is the largest weapon of its kind ever fitted onto a cruiser's hull. Using hyper-dense magnetic coils, the MAC is capable of removing the shields of a and inflict substantial damage on the hull beneath, if not completely destroying it. While this already makes it exceptionally dangerous to vessels larger than itself, the Series-VI is particularly lethal because it is designed to reduce the long cooldown experienced after firing while losing none of its reliability. The first is the installation of massive capacitor banks and cooling arrays along the middle of the bow, which store excess energy to allow the battlecruiser to fire even when its diverting almost all its power to every other systems. Next, backup electromagnetic coils can switch out damaged variations to allow it to immediately fire a second salvo. The last measure are heat and stress sensors mounted directly on the rings themselves, with transmits data on which coils need to cool down and which ones are capable of being used again. Using this data, the tactical officer is capable of firing a regular round at reduced velocity, or accelerate a frigate-sized slug up to 60,000 metres per second. By using this method, a battlecruiser could potentially dedicate its entire output to the MACs to allow them to fire up to three salvoes per minute. Finally, two miniature fusion reactors are included as part of the system, allowing the capacitors to be recharged even if they are isolated from the main reactors.

A revamped reloading system is also included, which can automatically change rounds depending on data from targeting scans, cutting down on reload times and allowing the battlecruiser to carry a total of eighty rounds within its reconfigurable magazine. Currently, there are four rounds which are compatible with the Series-VI MACs, available in both cluster and slug forms:
 * XM38CSEM EMP round: Dubbed by naval personnel as the "Cov-Killer", this experimental round is engineered specifically for use against Covenant . The shell is covered by a magnetised Nickle-Cobalt alloy to allow it to reach higher velocities when being. After this state, the munition would undergo a brief arming period of its Deuterium payload which leaves it at limited effectiveness. To reduce the chance of the payload not igniting, the outer layer of the shell is designed to be energised in the barrel. A simple sensor within the round waits to reach a predetermined distance from its target, after which it would explode into seven main fragments which would collide with its shields. The multiple impacts and the subsequent ionic interference would wreak havoc on energy shielding, bringing them down faster than any other ordnance at the UNSC's disposal. Particularly skilled captains can inflict substantial damage against the shields of an entire enemy fleet. Despite not being as strong as the standard slug, each fragment is still built in a squash-head fashion to maximise its damage against the enemy hull.
 * XM50SPH round: The immediate predecessor to the round more widely on, the XM52SPH is similar in concept to the earlier XM38CSEM EMP round, being designed to allow UNSC ships to better combat ships with energy shielding. However, rather than interfere with the operation of the emitter itself, this round negates it entirely with its shield modulation field, which tricks the Covenant's energy shields into believing its part of the vessel. Although crude and prone to failing to successfully penetrate on a number of occasions, its development would finally give the UNSC the opportunity to nearly match the Covenant had it not been too difficult to produce in large numbers.
 * Tungsten round: The most frequently-used munition for the MAC, the 1300-tonne Tungsten slug is a reliable means of dealing damage to enemy forces. Like the XM38CSEM, the slug has a squash head to spread out its impact force across the enemy superstructure, increasing the area available for its kinetic energy to be absorbed onto. However, this slug is designed to remain rigid on impact, smashing through its target with enough force to inflict modest damage on a trailing ship. As a result, it is highly recommended for it to be used in surgical strikes, either to disable enemy systems or hit two vessels at once. As the most readily-available MAC slug, it is simply used for general attacks.
 * Depleted-Uranium round: Given that so much of the Artemis ' power is centred around its MAC, it is obvious that this ship can benefit the most from a munition designed to be fire when its main guns are under-powered. The 900-tonne depleted-Uranium slug is built to cause the most harm when fired at low velocities. Upon impact, the slug is vaporised into a fireball that incinerates its targets, releasing a small area-of-effect field which damages any other threats within and without the ship unfortunate enough to be hit. While not as effective as a nuke, this is arguably more reliable thanks to its inability to get shot down.
 * Shredder round: One of the few ships able to fire them when it was developed, the Shredder round operates in a fragmentary fashion, capable of impaling brittle pieces of itself into the frame of enemy ships. This performs exceptionally well against large targets, where they become more vulnerable to additional impacts and are forced to travel slower to prevent the ship from breaking apart.

The secondary armaments are inferior to other cruisers, which is acceptable considering its role. There are only two which are even moderately effective against the Covenant, the most powerful being its three. A modular missile system that is designed to be launched from both strikecraft and larger starships, the Shiva is used to inflict an uncontrolled explosion in both atmosphere and vacuum, largely depending on its warhead. Typically, the Artemis has its Shivas outfitted with a 55-megatonne Califorium warhead outfitted for vacuum conditions, using a three-stage fusion system filled with Hydrogen isotopes that is ignited when pulled into the initial fission implosion. This amplifies the yield, and while it can vary to a degree depending on how strong the closest magnetic field is, it can reliably destroy any Covenant cruiser up to 120 million tonnes in mass that is within ten kilometres of the blast radius. In addition, the Shiva releases a huge spike in electromagnetic radiation, disrupting shields and electrical systems, often requiring human ships to reset their systems following the missile's detonation. Although once armed it can detonate when if shot, it will only be armed once it receives an activation signal from the battlecruiser, sent after the host ship leaves the blast radius. As it constantly emits radiation, the missiles are stored in a radiation-resistant bay located fifty metres away from the nearest hallway, with numerous Lead walls located between them.

On occasion, the Shiva nukes can be completely replaced with the safer, less-devastating. Originally designed to be fired against targets in-atmosphere, fusion rockets differ from the more common nuclear missiles in that it does not require a radioactive material to compress the Hydrogen fuel. Instead, the rocket is built similar to a fusion reactor, temporarily producing a huge fusion cycle which would quickly engulf a sizable area within a superhot fireball. The blast is equivalent to a 65-megatonne blast, although it can be tuned to various yields prior to launch. The nose of the rocket is far more heavily reinforced than necessary, allowing its payload to remain intact even after smashing through metres of plating. As the rocket is completely unguided, it must be aimed carefully prior to launch, with the Artemis sporting a dedicated turret to fire them. However, it makes up for this with its fusion drive, an unusual propulsion system for a missile, which can allow the rocket to accelerate to speeds in excess of 1,000 kilometres per hour within a few seconds. This allows it to evade point-defence systems by literally being too fast for them to lock on to. Fusion rockets have become unpopular in the UNSC, as they are ineffective at disrupting energy shielding and are expensive and hard to produce thanks to their complicated engine design.

Intended for purely defensive measures, the Artemis is equipped with a pathetic amount of variable missile pods. While most smaller ships could carry more than a thousand of individual missiles, an unmodified Artemis had eight pods which carried forty-two missiles each, giving the ship only 336 missiles. Each pod could fire a maximum of five missiles at once and took less than a minute to rearm. They could accept a wide range of missile types, although normally they were fitted with either forty-two M58 Archers, or thirty M58 Archers and twelve M4 decoys. The M58 Archer is the UNSC's general-purpose ship-to-ship munition, built to be equally effective against small agile and lumbering capital ships. They carry a roughly five hundred kilogram high-explosive warhead with a reinforced nose and delayed fuse to allow them to indent themselves into armour and explode in a directed cone, maximising explosive potential. These can be replaced with a variety of other munitions to increase lethality against certain targets. Unfortunately, the basic Archer housing has proven to be predictable in flight, making it easy to shoot down. This is why they are most often fired in salvos of hundreds of individual devices, although the Artemis can only fire forty Archers at a given moment - a very low amount for any warship. In addition, while they have few issues with intercepting and gunships, they cannot be relied on to destroy interceptors such as  as these craft can evade them long enough for their propellant to run out, causing them to prematurely explode. More importantly, they are extremely ineffective against the Covenant; hundreds if not thousands are required to cut through the Covenant's energy shielding, with even more needed because their are accurate enough to shoot down half of that number at a safe distance. When all this is considered, the Artemis ' Archer complement cannot be relied upon to even threaten the small Covenant warship.

The last frequent missile payload is the M4 decoy. Essentially an extremely-high powered emitter strapped to a set of engines, the M4 emits a series of falsified signatures to trick enemy ships and in particular weapon-systems. In their default setting, they deliberately fool enemy point defence countermeasures into firing at empty space or at low-yield missiles, ensuring that powerful rockets can get in close enough to damage formations of enemy vessels. However, the ones on these battlecruisers have received an updated emitter which allows them to fulfil a limited electronic-warfare role. They can either provide low-level communications disruption or, more often, trick enemy sensors into reporting that a UNSC warship is nearby. They can mimic the thermal, radiation and spectrometry signature of anything up to a UNSC frigate. While they can be used to lure enemy ships into a trap, they are mostly used only as a last-resort to draw off foes that are verging too close to the Artemis ' and maximising the survival of their nuclear missiles. As a result, electronic warfare should not be done by the M4 decoys, with more specialised craft such as prowlers preferred to fill that gap.

Twelve M870 "Rampart" 50mm autocannons are installed all over the battlecruiser. It is primarily intended to screen the skies for incoming missiles and strikecraft. The six-metre-long turret itself is a typical fast-tracking housing, able to turn its four barrels within a range greater than 200 degrees and perform a full rotation in less than half a second. It can fire a wide range of ammunition, but it is often equipped with only three types; timed flak, solid slugs and high-explosive rounds, designed for light-armoured targets and area-denial, heavy armour, and energy-shielding, respectively. The rounds are initially electronically-fired in an atmospheric environment, which are then accelerated by coilguns built within the barrels. This allows them to have a maximum rated range of about seven kilometres, although this is loose as particularly slow or predictable targets can hit from beyond this limit.

Armour and Superstructural Supports
Lagging behind the standards of other cruisers at the time, the Artemis is still outfitted with a hull thick enough to withstand most projectiles. Located above the main hull is a thin coating of refractive coating. The largest vessel to make use of this important innovation, refractive coating is a heat-absorption gel that is used to combat the threat of high temperatures. If struck by an energy weapon, the coating reacts in two ways. The first is that it rapidly dilutes the extreme heat, equalising the temperatures across the entire vessel to minimise damage. If the temperature reaches a certain threshold, the gel vaporises into a rapidly-expanding mist, forcing itself away from the hull towards the vacuum of space. This particular coating has an insulation underlay added to make it difficult for the heat to move below this coating, and is affected by the battlecruiser's artificial gravity - the gel will coat any new holes made into the hull, decreasing the risk of depressurisation. A side-effect of this extremely-expensive coating is that once heated the battlecruiser will stand out on thermal scans, making its stealth systems useless. However, the ability to better counter the Covenant's advanced weaponry has made this a necessary trade-off. Fortunately, the second block has eliminated this by adding stealth plating on top on a per-mission basis.

Most of the hull is made up with a modified version of the found on its sister warships, which has a mean thickness of 1.5 meters. Designated as TI-A2/C, its actually a hybrid plating with two alternating layers. The first is the newer Titanium-A2 layer, laid in fifteen-centimetre layers. Designed to have improved performance against energy weapons, it is actually less pure than its predecessor, being mixed with compounds which display better insulation qualities to keep the plating solid at high temperatures. These are arranged in a crystal atomic lattice, similar to diamond, which retains any physical strength it would have otherwise lost. The second layer is made up with a ten-centimeter thick cage of Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC), with a solid top, bottom and sides. Inside this cage is, somewhat strangely, only the micro-scale RCC poles which are added to make it strong enough to hold the weight of the armour above it. The rest of it is a vacuum, which assists in halting the spread of heat by preventing all means for it to travel except by conduction. Unfortunately, this vacuum made TI-A2/C worse at stopping kinetic weapons - a flaw which was corrected in the later. All this made this variation of Titanium-A a far more effective defence against energy weapons. It never saw widespread adoption, with only the Artemis showcasing the armour.

Select parts of the hull are covered with a variable layer of depleted Uranium (DU) armour, which can be viewed on the surface at places where the Titanium is not present. Made up of ultra-purified Uranium with less than 0.124% of the radioactive U-235 isotope, this material is a dense and tough substance which has seen use as an impressive if expensive defence against kinetic weapons. However, unlike most warship classes, some upper DU plates on the Artemis are designed to be reactive, exploding to intersect the magnetic field of the plasma torpedo and reduce its raw impact damage. This debris also coats the other bricks of armour, preventing them from all detonating at once. For lower plating, the Uranium is treated to suppress its incendiary properties, then coated with a thin layer of Tungsten sheets to prevent it from reacting without decreasing strength.

The main frame does not have as much thought put into it as the armour, with vastly reduced strength when compared to other ships. Columns of measuring forty metres long are arranged in cube-like formations going both vertical and horizontal. These columns are thinner and longer than the standard, a measure which combats the high price of these battlecruisers while also keeping weight down. However, they are more susceptible to the stress of combat manoeuvres and could not withstand shockwaves from severe impacts. Similarly, there are very few places where internal armour is added; only the bridge and reactors have this protection. The spaces between the columns are filled in by thin plates of TR steel only where the armour itself needs to be welded on. A few hydraulic supports have been added to help cope with the stress of impacts and turning, yet otherwise, the battlecruiser is highly vulnerable to being torn apart by a well-placed energy projector or plasma torpedo hit. However, in the case of the prongs at the front, this has been disregarded to allow them to take the stress of a MAC round approaching their maximum speed.

After the war, the Artemis-class battlecruiser was prioritised for the installation of energy shielding, and was refitted to host supplied by. Among the first 'privatised' models of shield generators offered for sale, the MX812 allows the battlecruiser to be significantly more durable with only a minimal increase in mass. In their proper implementation, MX812 is divided into six sectors that are independently managed, to still maintain some integrity if a portion of the shields are broken or overlay the unprotected hull until those generators recharge. However, resource shortages means that most battlecruisers only have a single generator which protects the whole ship, with the projectors organised in such a way to make future installation straightforward and fast. Unfortunately, the MX812 itself is particularly regressive when compared to their Covenant equivalents. When weapons need to be fired, an MX812-compatible vessel must drop the entire barrier for at least seven seconds before they can be reactivated; in contrast, a Covenant shield system can limit the barrier dropped to only a few metres around the armament system and can re-engage almost immediately after discharge. However, the tactical abilities to temporarily negate an opponent's barrage still make this a desired addition.

Complement
The Artemis-class battlecruiser is notorious for having a proportionally small amount of fighters, passengers and crew. The total amount of manpower it can carry comfortably is 1,008, with 760 crewmen dedicated to keep the ship functioning. This means that only 248 people are responsible for providing security, manning fighters, and managing the logistics for the extra personnel. The complement is most frequently shared between the following:


 * One.
 * Five GA-TL1 Longswords with various loadouts.
 * Four.
 * Three.
 * Sixteen M377 Pigeon unmanned reconnaissance vehicles.
 * One Marine Shipboard Defence Unit.

A rather narrow vessel measuring only two hundred metres long, the Sloop-class prowler is an aging vessel that originally saw use during the Insurrection. A favourite of the now-defunct, this prowler is built as a scout ship first and covert deployment vessel second. To assist in detecting enemy forces, the prowler had two triangular wings which are cluttered with highly-sensitive passive detection equipment, increasing its sensor performance without adding too much mass or surface area for the enemy to detect. A hangar is installed at the fore section, which can hold a maximum of two, and two docking attachment points on the bottom hull. Its two engines, while capable of propelling the prowler to respectable speeds, were normally powered below 40% of their maximum output, as any more would render their emission bafflers useless. Although originally armed with a single Archer missile, recent refits have added two powerful pulse lasers for self-defence purposes.

To complement its advanced sensors are two squadrons of M377 Pigeon unmanned reconnaissance vehicles. Manufactured by the, the sixteen-metre-long Pigeon drone is a typical reconnaissance drone, featuring RADAR-suppressing plating along with a carefully-calibrated array of communications antennae and sensors on a speedy set of ion engines. This allows these drones to act as a reliable means of long-range communications between the battlecruiser and its strikecraft in the field, as well as detect opponents hidden by obstacles. However, the Pigeon is distinguished through its far more sophisticated electronic-warfare technologies and its destruction releases a massive cloud of debris which is difficult to scan through. Such technologies allow them to "chirp" electromagnetic waves identical to those used by the Covenant, tricking them into detecting something in an empty region of space. Enemy coordination can also be disrupted by the drones, emitting a sudden burst in radiation which comes up as static on communications channels. Unfortunately, this has proven to be easily solved by simply recalibrating the arrays to local conditions. While they are hardened against EMP and coated so they do not get burnt out by ionised gases, they are still fragile and cannot be trusted to do anything other than suicide runs in combat. As a result, all manual craft are usually outfitted with an override which forces the drones to crash into a designated hostile craft.

There are also five GA-TL1 Longsword strikecraft embarked on the Artemis at all times. Built with a low, delta-shaped profile, the Longswords are intended to be used as a basic force for spatial superiority. Easy to modify to accommodate different mission requirements, they are not intended for stealth operations, and as such are usually only deployed when the crew knows that they have been detected and need to fight. The longswords are divided up into flights based on their assigned role, with three outfitted as interceptors or fighters, two as dedicated bombers and the last being an asymmetrical warfare craft in the event the prowler is lost to enemy action.

Officially, the longsword pilots are expected to destroy any opposition before they can get close enough to fire upon their host. Unofficially, they know they are almost-always going to be outmatched, being deployed only to delay the enemy long enough for the battlecruiser to escape. As a result, rather than make a run straight for incoming strikecraft, the Longswords adopt a cat-and-mouse mentality, using hit-and-run tactics to destroy as many enemy fighters as possible before escaping from the survivors. Kamikaze suicide runs are encouraged only against unshielded Covenant warships, where the pilots will crash their aircraft into their hangar to stop more Covenant starfighters from launching. While somewhat effective against, they are ineffective against the larger frigates and cruisers, ignorantly tanking their fire in favour of pursuing the escaping battlecruiser.

To help maintain awareness on the battlefield, the Artemis can deploy three. Measuring roughly four metres in diameter, the probes are designed to constantly phase between slipspace and realspace, so they have a sturdy design made almost entirely with Titanium-A. The exterior is pot-marked with hyper-sensitive lens capable of detecting everything from Microwaves to Gamma rays and to a lesser extent gravitational anomalies. A retractable tightbeam laser communications suite is installed to transmit the data back to the mothership, yet it has no engine at all and so cannot return without assistance from a Pelican dropship. This lack of propulsion, as well as the unreliability of where it will emerge when exiting slipspace, means that the crew treats these expensive pieces of hardware as disposable.

Under normal conditions, the battlecruiser is equipped with a "Shipboard Defence Unit", a small Marine unit used for basic defence of the vessel. Amounting to around a company in size, they are the smallest, most basic organisation that can be classified as an expeditionary force. Optimally more than 196 personnel in size, they are divided between the Marine Combat Element, Aviation Special Operations Element and Logistical Support Element. Because of its small size, they are stationed on every UNSC ship and are usually temporary unit formed from larger Marine organisations. However, it is unusual for ships the size of an Artemis to not accept any larger units such as a, and it is often scrutinised as being insufficient to protect the vessel if it is ever boarded. In theory, the battlecruiser could comfortably carry up to two Shipboard Defen, although the maximum number any vessel has ever carried in practice is two.

The Marine Combat Element is the main fighting force of the Shipboard Defense Unit. Composed of around 140 personnel with only eight vehicles, the Marines are able to offer some level of ground control, as well as general defence of their host warship. Given the infrequency that they would be deployed on a planet's surface, they are primarily trained for boarding actions and cramped fighting in zero-g conditions but are nevertheless given equipment to sustain a planetside operation. They are typically organised into:
 * 1 vehicle reconnaissance squad (2, 6 ):
 * 2 marine platoons (40-100 men)
 * 3-4 riflemen squads (24-52 men)
 * 1-2 heavy weapons and/or demolitions squads (16-26 men)
 * 1 marksman squad (8-13 men)
 * 1 combat engineer squad (8-13 men)
 * 2 ODST squads (16-26 men)

Rather than having an Aviation Combat Element stationed on most other ships of its size, the Artemis garrisons a single Aviation Special Operations Element. Made up of small vacuum-sealed spacecraft with stealth technologies, this unit is used to deploy small teams into areas of interest, such as space stations and planetside dig sites. Once on the ground, they double as forward bases to coordinate the operation, resupply ammunition and ferrying marines to and from the mothership. This is necessary, as they must uphold communications protocols to the strictest extent to avoid detection, often limiting them to the use of short-ranged transmissions only. However, as every aircraft is only modestly armed with light anti-personnel weapons, they can be easily defeated by even the lightest of fighters unless an escort is organised to protect them. It is made up of 36 personnel, divided between the following:
 * 1 covert airlift flight (3 )
 * 1 covert insertion flight (3 )
 * 1 drone squadron (7 )

The Logistical Support Element tends to be the smallest section of the Shipboard Defense Unit, although this is not always true as it has a tendency to vary in size from mission-to-mission. Anyone not intended to work directly in combat operations, such as engineers, medical practitioners and officers are assigned to this unit. While the bulk of the personnel are left on the battlecruiser, some staff are permitted to leave to coordinate and support operations in the field. In addition, surplus soldiers intended to replace casualties in the field are also temporarily assigned here. It typically ranges in about twenty people in size, although it can rise up to forty or fifty prior to high-risk operations. On an Artemis, such operations are virtually non-existent.

To evacuate the crew and a majority of the Marines during emergencies, like most UNSC ships these battlecruisers have a host of lifeboats located across multiple decks. Each of these are disposable, manually-piloted spacecraft with a long-range MASER for contacting rescuers and at least a weeks worth of food, water, and Oxygen. All UNSC servicemen are trained in their operation, and the integrated navigation software is specifically dumbed-down with course-correction protocols fitted to autonomously correct mistakes made by novice lifeboat pilots. Both of these are sourced from SKT Bumblebee line, with the former having seating for three occupants and the latter for nine. Both of these are armoured only against micrometeorite impacts and atmospheric reentry, with the Reinforced Carbon-Carbon plating mounted on their keel face being the thickest and strongest part of the spacecraft. Because of this, they are highly vulnerable to weapons and lack any countermeasures at all, which makes their destruction by Covenant gunners all the more easier. There are 136 escape pods total, divided between the following:
 * 86 SKT-7 Bumblebee lifeboats
 * 50

Crew
As previously stated, an Artemis battlecruiser has an optimal crew of 760 people and a single "Smart" AI. This is a much smaller number than those on contemporary cruisers, whose crew counts tend to reach the low thousands. The main reason for this is because Artemis is built to take advantage of the newest automation innovations made in recent years. These developments have allowed such a small crew to manage such a large vessel by supplementing their existing skills with an advanced network interface and robotic access.

The ship's Smart AI is perhaps the most important part of the crew. Given access to nearly every part of the ship, with the exception of the backup data caches separate from the main computer network, the AI is integral in allowing the ship to fight as efficiently as possible. It is capable of rewriting weapon scripts to adapt to enemy tactics, managing the exterior repair drones and if possible engaging in cyber-warfare on the enemy ship, often doing all of this simultaneously. Although most of the processing power to do this is provided from within the AI Core, it can increase this for itself or a sophisticated cyber program by hijacking one of the sixteen interlinked servers present all over ship. These are directly connected to the AI by powerful fibre optic cables, minimising lag while maximising coordination between its programs. By using these servers, an AI could, in theory, have enough processing power to fly an Artemis without human assistance, despite concerns on its effect to its overall lifespan. This level of freedom has led to rampancy becoming a very real issue should it manifest in the AI, and as a result, the captain and the electronic warfare officer are both able to lock out the AI from all other networks should they believe the program to be a danger to the crew.

Sensors and communications
Complementing its exceptionally-powerful main guns is a large selection of scanning systems designed to monitor a number of different spectrums, ensuring the captain is always be aware of everything around them. These can range from the tried-and-true configurations such as RADAR and LIDAR sensor dishes, however, the most effective comes from the cutting-edge ORACLE-class sensor suite. Manufactured on a case-by-case basis within the, the ORACLE is humanity's first attempt at creating a scanner designed to detect subtle gravitational wave fluctuations between masses in space. To detect these, the antennae are covered with hundreds of individually-articulating fins which when combined pick up slight changes in the local waves - enough to detect a body weighing twenty-one million tons at ten kilometres away in a gravitational field generated by a standard planet. While later revisions would reduce the mass to ten million tons, it was still an incredible development which allowed the Artemis to gain important insight into any enemy forces in the area at faster speeds than traditional electromagnetic spectrum-based systems can. As gravity waves are generated by mass itself, it is nearly impossible to fool. However, before it can be used, it must spend six minutes synchronising to local conditions or otherwise its accuracy will suffer. Another flaw lies in its delay - while gravity waves travel at faster-than-light speeds, the dedicated computer requires several seconds to process the data into something readable to humans. Nevertheless, the ability to detect cloaked vessels while giving off no indication they are being scanned is seen as an incredibly-valuable tactical asset. Alternatively, the fins can align themselves within the local magnetic field to detect tiny intersections made by ships, at a faster refresh rate than the normal mode. So powerful is this system that the ORACLE suite still remained cutting-edge technology even decades after being introduced.

Countermeasures
If at risk of being directly engaged, an Artemis had few other choices other then flee or attempt to destroy their opponent before they could enter firing range. As saving these capital ships is prioritised by the UNSC over destroying enemy ships, the Artemis comes equipped with several self-defence systems intended to maximise the amount of time before their weapons are locked.

When escaping, these battlecruisers fire off massive clouds from its ship-mounted AN/SLQ-49 MAGICIAN countermeasure dispersers, a process many sailors refer to as "inking" or "smoking" depending on its use. Using a complicated and classified mix of reactive materials, radiation emitters, and rumoured debris from fallen UNSC ships, the MAGICIAN obstruction dust is specifically formulated to break existing target locks and overload sensors with junk readings. A series of weak electromagnets are included to combat premature scattering of the smoke, maintaining effective density for up to fifteen minutes. While it is true that it offers no protection against unguided projectiles as they can simply pass through it, it masks the user so thoroughly that the attacker is essentially firing blind. The weak magnetic distortion has a secondary bonus of sapping power from plasma projectiles, weakening their ability to damage the ship. While the MAGICIAN system was continuously improved based on data from its usage, it remained too difficult to produce in numbers needed for ships of the line and so remained restricted for exceptionally-important vessels - typically battlecruisers like the Artemis and fleet flagships such as supercarriers.

In the event that they fail, the Artemis-class battlecruiser carries dozens of Mark 282 Rapid Offboard Countermeasures and Decoy Launchers (ROCaDLs). Essentially a series of mortars each angled away from the hull, and spaced around to maximise coverage, a single ROCaDL is a fixed missile pod which has nine cells offset at different angles from the surface it is mounted on. The first set of three are running directly parallel to the surface it is mounted on, the next three are offset to 35o, and the last three rows are set at 60o. Like all UNSC weapon systems, the system is designed to an integrated autoloader which can intelligently rearm it in different configurations in a surprisingly swift amount of time; it has a reload time that can be as quick as five seconds. In addition, its size allows it to be fitted to a vast number of thin surfaces thanks to the lack of a turret base. Because the Mark 282 ROCaDLs are only used when directly engaged at short-range, and are a tertiary defence system if the MAGICIAN dispensers fail, the Artemis-class only carries enough rounds for two full salvos before they must be reloaded, divided between the following:
 * M44A multispectrum decoy system: Dumbfired infrared, optical, and ultraviolet flare system, which launches consumed thermal sinks to supplement effectiveness.
 * M991C combined chaff/smoke system: Dumbfired warhead which releases magneticised ferrous filings and obstructive smoke to blind space fighters and break weapons lock. The micrometeorite filings overloads the shields on space fighters and can destroy them with enough impacts.
 * M991D plasma countermeasure system: Self-propelled infrared-guided warhead with an electromagnet as its main warhead and a weak explosive. Designed to render plasma torpedoes inert if not destroyed, although is capable against a wide range of plasma-based weaponry.

After the war, a new generation of battlecruisers became the first to field-test the AN/SLQ-812 UNDERTAKER Counter-Guidance Array. Developed in cooperation with Sangheili artisan-armourers, the UNDERTAKER array is designed to directly address the Covenant's devastating plasma torpedoes. Using a combination of focused counter-guidance emitters and radiation beams, it is able to harmlessly deflect torpedoes and send them in a random direction around the source. Early prototypes also included the option of a localised magnetic field to protect against a wide range of other plasma weapons, however, the strain it placed on the battlecruiser's frame and was too energy-intensive to sustain in combat, so it was removed in favour of energy shielding.

Stealth Systems
"We were patrolling the cluster for weeks when we encountered a single unidentified vessel. We proceeded to stalk it for almost four days continuously, following them around, waiting for them to show us where their base of operations were. I've never seen so many surprised faces - hell, even I was expecting our cover to blow within a hour of being there."

- Captain Blaire's journal, dated from the Artemis ' tests in 2537.

Perhaps the vessel's most significant division from traditional ships of the line is its focuses on cloaking technologies to enable it to survive. While not as technologically sophisticated or as effective as those on smaller prowlers, it allows the battlecruiser to survive in places where larger vessels would not, stalking patrolling Covenant warships until it has the perfect opportunity to fire. To ensure reliability and quality, all of their default stealth systems were fabricated and fitted by Deimos Special Projects Division, a government-owned affiliate of RMC that is responsible for outfitting ONI's prowlers.

The first defense against detection is from a thin layer of penta-walled stealth nanotube paint added to the top of the armour. It is composed mostly of Carbon but also mixed with compounds such as Trifluroditanlalum Hydroxide and Scandium Carbide suspended in a clear non-reflective resin, all of which were chosen for their ability to absorb radio and microwaves while keeping the scattering and reflection of the other rays to a minimum. This allows the paint to reduce the ship's RADAR cross-section while still remaining invisible to high-imaging LIDAR sensors of most other human ships, ensuring it is difficult to detect at both short and long ranges. However, the most effectiveness comes from the multiple layers of split-ring resonators. Made out of Copper foil on a dielectric backing, each layer in the seven-centimetre thick plate features different-sized resonators to better combat a specific frequency of electromagnetic waves, redirecting them away from the enemy. The stealth plating was incredibly fragile and required hours of expensive maintenance to ensure the plating's reliability - a problem which was later solved by implementing the stealth structure into removable tiles to hasten the process. This innovation is only found in the battlecruisers produced after 2540.

For the purposes of preventing its detection, the Artemis is unique in that a portion of its AI is dedicated to analysing incoming radiation patterns. By doing this, this class is capable of emitting a counter-signal through its sensor and communications antennae towards the Covenant ships that matched its radiation background. While the resulting signal pattern only has a 60% match, and could not work at a wavelength above infrared, it helped mask the "blank space" that their plating would create. However, the AI is able to cleverly distinguish modulating patterns given out by active-scanners like LIDAR and RADAR from the radiation background, and share them with its assortment of drones, fighters, and any nearby prowlers. This allows them to send out "chirps" that come up as a detection on Covenant and human sensors, tricking them into thinking the battlecruiser is located elsewhere from where it actually is.

While not part of any production model, several battlecruisers have been modified to allow their reactors to vent themselves in the front portion of the ship. This modification was made because of several reasons, the key one being that if they passed a star, they would emerge as an easily-detectable black spot on enemy sensors. To solve this, this addition covered the front portion with a fusion reaction, making it difficult for even the Covenant's hyperscanners to separate the battlecruiser from the radiation of the star. However, this innovation was not adopted for two key reasons. Firstly, the reaction burnt off the refractive coating and tended to damage the hull in rapid turns, making these parts even weaker and could compromise their stealth qualities. Secondly, if coming on on two targets at a fair distance from each other, the Artemis would emerge as a massive radiation anomaly if it left the camouflage of its star.

Role & Tactics
The Artemis is usually only used in operations surrounding two main objectives; to search for any Covenant staging areas in remote areas, and to support local forces by coordinating their efforts or offering fire support. In the former, they are required to enter the system they are investigating under stealth conditions, though this meant that they could not carry any nukes as the radiation they emitted instantly revealed themselves to the Covenant. Standard scouting tactics call for these ships to be deployed in pairs to cover their blind spots, otherwise, they must periodically turn sideways or rely on their air wing to detect any enemy ships following them from behind. Crews are encouraged to enter nebulae and asteroid belts to hide themselves from Covenant sensors, though few do so due as the former's radiation makes it difficult to detect anything further than a couple of kilometres while the latter often deals severe damage to their superstructure from collisions.

When operating within fleets, these vessels are often chosen as flagships by admirals, though some junior naval officers often remark they chose this ship so they can retreat as soon as things turn sour. While cowardice did play a role in some choices, the main reason is that the battlecruiser comes with impressive communications and targeting array, only further improved by a command suite so often installed. The Artemis ' heavy communications equipment can keep them in contact with the entire fleet unless the most sophisticated jamming devices are deployed. Since the battlecruiser's sensors are among the best in the UNSC, the battlegroup's firing solutions are slaved to it to improve not only range but also timing, allowing the fleet to deal as much damage as possible before the shields can adapt to the incoming barrage.

Weaknesses and Counter-tactics
"Rey- Captain! The Destroyer has teleported four hundred metres off our starboard stern. Reading multiple hull breaches across all decks. Severe damage dete-!"

- Black box from the UNSC Iron Throne, showing one way an Artemis can be destroyed.

Despite their high praise, there are numerous weaknesses which could be exploited to quickly turn the tables on the UNSC. As stated before, the main hull was comparatively thin, being thinner than that on the far smaller. While already at a disadvantage, the Artemis is poorly suited to fighting at anything closer than ten kilometers. Its secondary armaments of eight Archer missile pods are smaller than those on ships several times smaller, making it nearly helpless if its foe was anywhere else except directly in front of it. It also proved to be vulnerable to strafing runs, who could easily evade its anti-fighter defenses and land a damaging hit on its lightly-armoured sides.

Despite their superior agility compared to other cruisers and relatively-fast slipspace speeds, they are still far slower than their Covenant equivalents. This often forced their captains to self-destruct their ships, since a single Covenant frigate is enough to quickly puncture its hull and pursue the battlecruiser if it attempted to run. are also highly effective, as they can gut a battlecruiser at ranges which would normally be considered untouchable to Covenant weaponry.

A number of tactics have been seen used by the Covenant, despite their slowness to adapt to UNSC strategies. Late in the war, Covenant warships began to hide behind sufficiently-large bodies, such as an asteroid or even a helpless space station. While the Artemis strafed to retrieve a targeting solution, the Covenant could fire guided plasma torpedoes around the obstacle and destroy their opponent without exposing themselves. Another tactic, one which has been only seen in the final battles of the Great War, was when entire Covenant battlegroups would initiate an in-system slipspace jump to close in on the vulnerable UNSC forces, destroying entire fleets before the UNSC captains could react.

Development
The concepts for the Artemis battlecruiser's earliest designs began in, only four years into the war. Horrified at how badly all their previous designs were outclassed by their Covenant equivalents, executives in Reyes-McLees Corporation (RMC) knew it was only a matter of time until the UNSC called on others to replace their ageing fleet. Rather than use existing technologies to build a hasty series of replacements, the company took an unexpected turn by pressuring the UNSC to allow them to construct experimental technologies to best prepare them against the alien menace. The two entities were eventually able to strike a deal, with agreeing to supply classified technologies while RMC would build a line of new warships that could both take down their Covenant counterparts. This would birth Project HUNTER, which would be headed by Vice Admiral Jacob Shoecraft.

The first phase of the project saw ONI's gather combat data about how UNSC ships operate and are destroyed. The study would see teams of ONI agents analyse the wrecks of lost warships, find common patterns in battle reports and interview skilled captains and admirals. The study revealed that outside of Vice Admiral fleet, conventional combat was doomed to failure; only the Halcyon-class light cruiser could survive long enough to give its battlegroup a chance to destroy even a single Covenant. Instead, most captains adopted hit-and-run tactics to destroy them at range, sacrificing ships without MAC guns to protect those that did. This led to Shoecraft authorising the designers to produce two heavily-armed warships, with the first being an immense battleship that could also take the firepower exhibited by their foes, with the second being considered a replacement for all of the UNSC's cruisers. These would be codenamed ORION and ARTEMIS, respectively.

The first design for the new cruiser would come from a young Adam Schroeder in. Inspired by the studies into the Halcyon-class, he designed a warship that mirrored its battleship counterpart in many ways. It was armed with three MACs, two cruiser-sized and a smaller frigate-sized mounted beneath, with a pair of turreted MACs on its port and starboard sides. It was heavily-armed, with thicker armour and even more extensive internal bracing than its predecessor, yet was just as slow. Finally, it made use of the recently-developed refractive coating to make it more resistant to the heat of Covenant plasma weapons and new point defence networks. Unfortunately, its high predicted price and lack of missile batteries saw it rejected by Shoecraft. The continued development would eventually see it informing the refit of the mothballed Halcyon-class cruisers, however.

The second design was also submitted by Dr. Elia Reynolds in 2532. Designing it so it can be built at drydocks suitable for the more numerous, this schematic sought to maintain that same focus of speed, firepower, and ease of construction. Equipped with the latest in power generation and the recent discovery of Pascade Gas, this new design was built to be as maneuverable as a ship half its size yet carrying four cruiser-sized MACs to give it unparalleled stopping power for its size. It was protected by eight anti-aircraft missiles and twenty-six point defence guns, and had a similarly-sized hangar to carry strikecraft. However, to make up for this, the cruiser was incredibly lightly-armoured, carrying only two-thirds of the armour on the Marathon. Because of its cost-effectiveness, heavy firepower and ability to be fabricated at any cruiser-scale drydock, the Shoecraft would approve of the new ships being built to Reynold's designs, albeit with certain changes to make it more effective.

However, the new cruiser had to undergo a major redesign in, following the. Despite being equipped with four metres of Titanium-A2 battleplate, an internal bracing system derived from the Halcyon-class and hundreds of Archer and, design flaws at having to crowd so many weapon systems led to the battleship's destruction in battle. This led to the navy rejecting the design, halting the construction of additional battleships until the flaw can be resolved. Faced with the possibility that the cruiser will have to be launched before the battleship is ready, Shoecraft wanted to have it be reinforced and up-gunned; however, he was quickly shot down by Dr. Reynolds, who made the point that such alternations will make the prototype unstable in flight and delay its launch by years. Discussions would lead to the pair outfitting the cruiser's husk with state-of-the-art stealth technologies and sensors, and replaced the single MAC with the one developed for the battleship - this would inspire the UNSC to reclassify it as a battlecruiser due to the presence of a battleship-grade weapon.

Human-Covenant War
"We've got a Covenant Carrier, she's tearing up the fleet. We need- wait, hold on, the carrier's fallen. We've been given a chance - regroup on me and fire while the Covvies are hesitating."

- Chatter from Battlegroup Arion.

Taking its name from the ill-fated development programme that it was part of, the UNSC Artemis was launched in the first half of 2537, and participated in several counter-insurgency operations over the course of three months. The results were exceptional; of its seventeen attacks against known Insurrectionist stations and ships, almost every mission was completed without being detected or observed. It was only detected in the last attack, where the Artemis was forced to work with an Insurrectionist flotilla of three transports and a frigate after a small battlegroup of Covenant warships arrived. Together they destroyed a and its two escorting, at the cost of the Insurrectionist frigate. Despite it being heavily damaged by the end of the engagement, its unprecedented victory over an equivalent number of Covenant vessels removed any doubt from the minds of commanders who worried of the battlecruiser's usefulness in combat scenarios and immediately led to the class' approval for production.

In spite of the prototype's success, the class only truly distinguished itself during the Skirmish over Kingston in. Consisting the UNSC Artemis and the UNSC Odin, and a handful of supporting frigates, Battlegroup Artemis would encounter a lone above the glassed planet. Recognising the opportunity to deal a serious hit the Covenant's morale, the battlegroup would engage the carrier at 1912 hours, when the battlegroup opened fire when the carrier began turning to face them. Despite losing the Odin and all frigates to enemy fire and swarms of Covenant strikecraft critically damaging the sole surviving battlecruiser, the battlegroup was successful in eliminating the carrier. As such a massive target had never been destroyed by such a small force, the skirmish would later be highly publicised and caused the UNSC to allow the vessel to enter mass-production, albeit with the option to produce it without its potent stealth features. Such was the hope it represented during this time that the Artemis-class battlecruiser was quite literally considered to be the beginning of a turning point in the war.

Their effect on the war was swift and unexpected. In conquered systems close to the UNSC's ever-shrinking borders, the successful Raids of Zone 361,, and destruction of the DDS-class carrier Sacerdotal Indulgence proved that existing anti-prowler protocols used by Covenant convoys and reinforcements were useless against a threat that could destroy even heavy warships before they could retaliate. It is believed that these acts alone extended the time between attacks by weeks and months, ensuring that the remaining Inner Colonies could fortify their defences further. In an attempt to buy humanity even more time, several flag officers put forward submissions for mission that would take Artemis-class battlecruisers even deeper into Covenant lines; only Operation: AVANTGARDE, better known as the Hades' Raids, was approved. Assigned to Rear Admiral Allison Spurgeon's Sixth Fleet, the four loaned battlecruisers supported by a squadron of were able to attack dozens of Covenant installations and even annihilate entire fleets of ships.

As the war progressed, Artemis-class battlecruisers were steadily pulled back into planetary defence groups, with their characteristic hunting expeditions slowly limited and discouraged. This was done in order to keep them close enough to counter alien incursions into Human Space, although it now gave the Covenant the chance to finally execute the crews that killed so many of their brothers. They notably participated in the Siege of the and the Battle of, where in spite of their experienced crews, took unacceptable losses at the hands of a Fleetmaster known as "The Destroyer". He used multiple tactics that would later become standard-affair when fighting these battlecruisers to misdirect, entrap, and outmanoeuvre them. Nine battlecruisers were lost in both engagements, showing that the Artemis-class were not the wonder weapons they appeared to be.

In the last three years of the war, Artemis-class battlecruisers were being held back around the UNSC's core worlds. They formed a key part of the Parisian Front, where in superheavy hunter-killer battlegroups they intercepted Covenant fleets attempting to bypass the defensive lines and reinforced the fortress-worlds of Paris IV and. The casualties they sustained saw the entire class, as well as the UNSC's last battleships and supercarriers, being permanently stationed at and the  after.

It was here that they took their bloodiest beatings. The majority of Reach's complement of Artemis-class battlecruisers were deployed in support of the offensive, targeting any corvettes supporting their armies and wiping out the prefabricated battlestations that the Covenant had erected. However, the surprise appearance of the  forced the UNSC fleet to retreat; at least four battlecruisers were lost to the supercarrier's initial barrage, with two more being deemed unusable after evacuating the area. Subsequent Covenant fleets would further whittle down their numbers, and the total number lost is estimated at eight before the remnants of the arrived. This was, unfortunately, a prelude of things to come. A renewed counter-attack led by the would arrive on August 30, and would directly batter the horribly-outnumbered 100-ship fleet. Even with support from the planet's, and a very good showing from the defenders, almost the entire Epsilon Eridani Fleet would be utterly destroyed. Included among their casualties included all twelve Artemis-class battlecruisers, including the lead ship herself.

With the loss of so many within the preceding months, all remaining Artemis-class battlecruisers were directly incorporated into the various sub-commands of the, with the exception of three that were conscripted to protect an. Only two participated in the initial defence against the, with most standing down in the event that the suspiciously-small squadron was suddenly reinforced. The first was eventually destroyed by overwhelming numbers of, and while the second was able to fend off the attackers, it did not survive the subsequent charge. After it was confirmed that the sole surviving assault carrier was carrying the, an ambitious plan to board his flagship with a detachment of ODSTs. To drop the carrier's substantially-powerful shields, two battlecruisers were requisitioned to launch low-velocity Cov-Killer rounds prior to their insertion. Neither of them were given authorisation to fire on the capital ship, and would be destroyed soon after when they were ambushed by reinforcements sent by the.

UNSC Remarks

 * "The spook's propaganda doesn't lie - one of the best sights of the war is when you see that gator silhouette against the sunset, then a blinding beam completely bisecting a Covenant cruiser."

Trivia

 * This article is based off the ship of the same name which appears in the mod "Sins of the Prophets".
 * The hull classification code for this class is also a reference to one of the author's friends on the wiki, who is referred to as "CB" on the Discord channel.