United Nations Space Command (Labyrinth)

In theory, the UNSC is the military defence force for Unified Earth, the civilian centre of government, and this is largely true. Comprised of the various branches of the UNSCDF, the UNSC undertakes colonial security patrols, arbitrates internal conflicts and engages in external defensive and offensive operations, oversees the thriving inter-colony freight industry, and generally polices human territory to keep the peace and protect the sovereignty of Earth and all its colonies. In practice, however, the Human-Covenant War has seen a dramatic, and some civilian politicians would call dictatorial, surges in power and authority with the UNSC. The nature of the conflict has forced the military to take a much more active role in day-to-day government than even it would like, and since 2525 is has stripped the Colonial Administration Authority of its authority, dismantled the Colonial Military Authority entirely, and has encroached significantly on the Unified Earth government's own authority.

Since the end of the Human-Covenant War, the UNSC has begun to scale back some of this abuse of power, as humanity begins the laborious process of reconstruction and consolidation. Some aspects of the UNSC's rise remain permanent - there is no inclination among the UNSC leadership to reestablish either the CMA or the CAA, and there is similarly no eagerness for their return on the part of the remaining colonies. As humanity transfers itself from an emergency military state to a true civilian government, the UNSC has been forced to make concessions - the budgets for fleet construction, troop rearmament, special weapons research have all been scaled back as Earth rebuilds itself and its colonies. At the same time, however, the UNSC has been forced to perform operations against various external threats to its security - the Blood Covenant, various Kig-Yar privateer and mercenary groups, Sangheili secessionists and so on - and has begun introducing equipment meant to modernise the UNSCDF into a truly effective fighting force, perhaps for the first time in nearly thirty years.