User:Imperial Misanthrope/Lord George Hood

"My son is capable, he is prepared. In the face of the Covenant, in the face of the Flood, in the dawning of negotiations with the Elites, he has stood and made us proud. Made me proud"

- Lord Terrence Hood speaking at his son’s inauguration ceremony in 2556

Admiral Lord George Hood is the UNSC Admiral of the Navy, the top most single authority in the UNSC naval forces, apart from HIGHCOM. Son of Lord Terrence Hood, George took over from his father when he was appointed by High Command after his father’s replacement died of Plasma radiation exposure. He has been the flag officer leader of the UNSC through some of the most trying of times for the UNSC after the Human-Covenant-Flood War, including battles against the Covenant Remnant, and the Accidental War.

Early Career
George Hood began his career as an office worker in the Office of Naval Intelligence(ONI), where he worked from the age of 19 to the age of 22 working under the Officer of Information Allocation. Through a complication that was rumoured to be linked with his father and a high ranking ONI figure, his job was terminated, and he was left jobless. Joining the Navy itself soon after in 2543, he began his new career as a ship pilot upon the UNSC Frigate Little Reliable. After performing spectacularly in several battles against Covenant forces, one of which saved the vessel itself when he, along with two surviving pilots, managed to skim the Frigate narrowly over the hull of a Covenant CCS-Battlecruiser that had had its shields disrupted, effectively leaving the Frigate free to enter Slipspace without fear of enemy fire. This maneuver was later named “Surfing the Hood” after him.

He was quickly promoted the following year in 2545 to Commander, and swiftly from that to Captain in another two years. Unfortunately in this time period, several attempts had been made on his life, for undisclosed reasons. These included, but were not limited to; a poisoned drink, a sabotaged airlock, a bomb in a public lavatory, and undetectable neural gas in his quarters. These finally stopped when the culprit was finally found trying to snipe him. The assassin took a cyanide pill before he could be questioned, however attempts on his life ceased after this event.

Vice-Admiral
In 2552, now Vice Admiral George Hood, he had been allocated to the Planet Reach where he worked as one of the commanding officers to the surrounding Fleet for 6 years. On Reach, he often encountered Dr. Halsey, and had particular interest in, but was extremely wary of her SPARTAN-II program.

"These Spartans of yours; they’re rough, they’re tough, and they don’t take lip off of anybody. To be honest doctor, that’s what I’m afraid of"

- Vice Admiral George Hood to Doctor Halsey upon seeing a demonstration of the SPARTANS in combat

In these six years he had come to be acquainted with, and eventually befriended Spartan-076, often spending time with him discussing things that Andrew-076 came up with in his “AWOL time”, that George found usually quite interesting. Through Andrew, George was able to meet and warmed up a lot to the Spartans, however unlike his father, he unfortunately never got to see any of them in none-simulated action, and never came to appreciate them for their abilities so much as who they were. Early in the year of 2552, he took notice of significant ONI presence on the planet. Having his personal “smart” AI, Mammon, infiltrate the ONI computer system, he comes across some disturbing information about Colonel James Ackerson tampering with field test equipment meant for use in a training session by John-117. Learning of the dramatic and becoming dangerous rivalry between Ackerson and Dr. Halsey, he continued to monitor the growing danger Ackerson was proving to the good Doctor.

After the incident with John-117, George was identified by Mammon that Cortana was seeking revenge on Ackerson for his interference. As a result, George ordered Mammon to discreetly occupy Colonel Ackerson’s AI, Araquiel, while Cortana infiltrated Ackerson’s files and relocated him to the front lines. As a result, Ackerson was scheduled to be removed from Reach, which suited George Hood quite well.

Battle of Reach
During the battle of Reach later that year, he was to be evacuated from the planet before the Covenant began glassing. However, he stayed and ordered Mammon to again infiltrate the system, since he had seen Ackerson retreating but without Araquiel. Mammon again went into Ackerson’s files without Araquiel present, it was later found that Araquiel was dealing with Dr. Halsey and her AI, Kalmiya. Hacking into the files, Mammon showed George the various changes Cortana had made, but also a file labeled S-III, which contained several files on Dr. Halsey’s Spartan-II’s, and a number of star charts.

Irritated, but under pressure to evacuate, George ordered Mammon to create a copy of the files and download himself back into a crystal matrix that George had with him. Doing as he was told, Mammon copied the files, but before he could retreat into the matrix, he was assaulted by a copy of Araquiel. Engaging in a quick and decisive battle of wits, Mammon managed to destroy the Araquiel copy by offering Araquiel a chance to destroy him utilizing a powerful deletion code, which Araquiel attempted to obtain. The code of course was not real, and Mammon managed to manipulate enough of the copy’s programming to neutralize it. However, Mammon sustained damage to several bits of his coding as he did so.

Eventually agreeing to go, he boarded the UNSC Marathon Cruiser Gun Shield. As the Covenant Fleet began to Glass the planet, he downloaded Mammon into the ship and ordered him to engage the Cole Protocol. However, before Mammon could activate the Slipspace drive, a Covenant destroyer fired a plasma torpedo at the bow of the ship, causing it to literarily “crash” through the just opened Slipspace portal. This also shook and made worse the damage to Mammon’s coding, causing him to enter a state of chronic code corruption.

Fortunately for the Cruiser, the Slipspace portal dropped them off into deep space, and no Covenant units had apparently bothered to follow.

Mammon’s upgrade
The section of space that the cruiser exited Slipspace in seemed to be completely isolated from anything, no celestial bodies existed nearby. The trip had taken approximately 5 weeks to exit Slipspace. The only visible thing was an outline against the stars that was noticed by Commander Codman. Mammon stated that he could not pick up anything via his sensors, but obliged the crew by steering the cruiser slowly towards the outline so as to visibly try and find out what it was.

George exited the bridge discreetly, entering a terminal in the empty hallway. Summoning Mammon’s attention, he asked the AI what was wrong with him. Mammon appeared to find this to be out of the blue and asked what he meant. “Mammon, you’ve been at my side for 3 years, now what’s wrong with you?”.

Reluctantly, Mammon explained what had occurred in his fight with Araquiel’s clone, and also admitted that his coding was slowly but surely falling to corruption. George quietly became beside himself, admitting that Mammon had been one of his closest friends in his years on Reach.

The outline turned out to be a part of some building or machine, a side of it seemed as though it had been ripped from something, like the top of a tower. Docking nearby, Mammon utilized several probes aboard the Cruiser to enter and discovery anything relating to the structures origins as per the orders of the Vice-Admiral and Commander. Mammon reported that the probes had found some form of alien computer terminal, however it did not identify as Covenant, but did seem to indicate that there was a Construct within. Without warning, Mammon entered the structure through the probes, and interfaced with the computer without informing the crew, or George.

After George ordered him to come back several times, he finally returned in a strange state of felicitation. Mammon then went about the ship, changing certain codes and procedures without heeding the protests of the Commander. Upon being sternly questioned by George on what he was doing, Mammon formed holo-graphically before him. With an almost disturbing smile on his face, Mammon asked the Vice Admiral what he wanted, right there and then, almost like he knew the answer already. George, taken aback, considered the question. Recomposing himself, he ordered Mammon to take the ship home. With a delighted yet dark and eerie laugh, Mammon instantly went straight back to rearranging the programming to the engines and Slipspace drive, George silencing the still complaining Commander.

War on Earth
To the utter surprise of the crew, Mammon was able to bring the cruiser out of Slipspace directly over the Earth. Not only that, he brought it over Birmingham, England, where George was born, and in only 9 days, to which Mammon stated “As per request, sir, I have brought you home”.

Astonished by this mastery of Slipspace precision, and the time it had taken to reach Earth from a completely unknown trajectory, Commander Codman wished to report it directly to HIGHCOM, but under Vice-Admiral Hood’s command and request, the Commander and the crew refrained from telling anyone about it. Anyone who was going to attempt it had no time to before the First Battle of Earth, which by the end of that the Cruiser and all its crew will have been destroyed.

Instead, George kept the AI in his personal crystal matrix chip.

Mere days before the Battle of Earth, to which the Earth had been alerted may well be inevitable, Vice-Admiral Hood was reassigned from his Fleet duty by the HIGHCOM Security Council to being one of the many Commanders aboard the orbital MAC Stations. Finally able to be alone with Mammon for a lengthy period of time, he questioned his AI about how and why he had changed.

Mammon was all too happy to explain the anomaly. Apparently the presence aboard the strange structure they had encountered was a broken section of a Forerunner AI that had remained dormant within the structure in order to preserve itself. Mammon had apparently awakened it, and, upon seeing this as a way for mutually helping one another, offered the old Forerunner Construct a chance to join with him. Mammon then explained that in return for giving the Construct mobility and a new purpose, Mammon had gained its former knowledge, a longer life-span (equal to that of an average human), and had been repaired by the merge of his corruption issue. George seemed a little wary of this explanation, remarking to Mammon that the Forerunner Construct may well have had an ulterior motive. Mammon confidently replies that he has no such fears, since the majority of the intellect in the AI ‘shard’ was marginally simply knowledge instead of personality, and that its only personality was its cheeriness.

On the 20th of October, 2552, the First Battle of Earth begins, with Vice-Admiral George Hood as the commanding officer aboard the UNSC Super-MAC Station Rome. Uploading Mammon into the system, he subsequently hands over the MAC gun to him, giving orders to various ships surrounding the station in conjunction with his father’s primary strategy.

After the successful space battle, George immediately requested that Mammon give him a tactical overview of what was occurring below in the Battle of New Mombassa. Bringing up a large 3D Holo-display, Mammon pointed out several key parts of the battle, including the destruction of the Scarab Tank by Spartain-117. Having not been briefed on Installation 04, George was not aware of any of the Spartan’s surviving the Battle of Reach. Intent on finding out he truth of the matter, he contacted his Father who was aboard Cairo station at the time, and asked if there were indeed any surviving Spartans. Vaguely, his father sent an encrypted message directly to the Rome Station computer, which Mammon immediately picked up and deciphered. Mammon told George that the message explained there were at least two surviving Spartans, 117 and 062. Unfortunately Spartan-062 was wounded at the time and was unable to enter combat.

Fascinated by this, Mammon asked George what he wanted to do. George replied that he wished to go down to the Earth’s surface to which Mammon was all too happy to set up for him. Taking a number of Marines and ODST’s with him, George made his way to the UNSC Frigate Thor’s Hammer, with which he was able to descend to the planet’s surface. He arrived just in time to see the Prophet of Regret’s Flagship hover near the Orbital elevator, and see it engage in its devastating Slipspace jump. Unable to pull up in time, the Frigate was sucked into the Slipspace anomaly.

Return to Earth
The UNSC Frigate Thor’s Hammer returned to Earth on the 5th of December 2552. The information on what occurred to him and the Frigate are unknown, but there are records of several marines on the Frigate that did not come back, and reports of a jettisoned escape pod holding about six marines, including a female pilot. These Marines were considered missing in action.

Whatever happened, it made Lord George Hood a sterner yet wiser man.

Ascension
It was decided by UNSC HIGHCOM that after the end of the Human-Covenant-Flood War, that the Navy would retain an Admiral of the Navy in an attempt to keep up appearances with the newly forged ISE (Imperium of the Sangheili Empire). However, Admiral Lord Terrence Hood had retired from the Navy in 2555. His replacement, Admiral Wellesley Mountbatten, took over for the first year until 2556, where he unexpectedly died from a form of cancer caused by plasma radiation (He had been directly exposed to a plasma power core during the Second Battle of Earth). Seemingly in a frenzy to find someone appropriate, HIGHCOM appointed Lord George Hood as the new Admiral of the Navy, much to his initial surprise and eventual honour. This immediately raised him to the rank of Admiral, and like his father before him, made him the official face of the UNSC Navy.

The First Remnant Wars
In the 2560’s, the negotiations between the UNSC and the newly formed ISE had strengthened to near brotherhood. Without the San ‘Shyuum telling them otherwise, the Sangheili realized the similarities between them and the Humans, and the humans found how beneficial it was to have such advanced allies. Unfortunately, by this time the Covenant Remnant had formed and had begun expanding and building. Both the UNSC and ISE were too militarily incapable to actually launch an effective campaign to stop their rivals, instead they began to build up their own, creating fleet from advanced Sangheili technology and defences from human ingenuity, the ideas of humans coming together with the Tier 2 technology of Sangheili formed some of the most technological advancements since the Forerunners.

Admiral Lord George Hood was the poster boy of these negotiations, although he was present during the Human-Covenant War, and witnessed much of the terror experienced, his time with the Spartans had opened him up to acceptance. Along with such individuals as Dtar 'Zealonf and his daughter Yamn ‘Zealonf, the Human-Sangheili Alliance was able to hold together throughout a series of attacks by the Remnant in the mid 2570’s.

Changing the war around in 2589CE, the Allied UNSC-ISE took the war to the Remnant under the guidance of Admiral Lord George Hood, and the Sangheili Imperial Admiral V’thi ‘Raman. By 2591, the Remnant had lost their territorial war, and had in fact lost much of their former territory to the Allied Forces.

The Accidental War
The Accidental War began but a year after the First Remnant War, which in the end was beneficial to the UNSC and ISE. The military and defencive build ups from the threat of Remnant forces essentially made the Allied forces prepared for the “Invading” Marionette forces.

At first unwilling to engage the Marionettes, Lord George Hood was finally swayed in 2594 mainly by the frequent urgings of the ISE, and the now concerned UNSC HIGHCOM. In 2594, a Combined UNSC-ISE Fleet engaged the Marionette Fleet of Horrendous Knowledge, lead by Supreme Commander Dtar 'Zealonf and Lord George Hood. The time for George could not have been worse, being demoralized by the death of his father just a month before, even Mammon couldn’t cheer him up, resulting in his being less focused on the battle until near its ending after both Mammon and Dtar ‘Zealonf metaphorically shook him out of it.

For the rest of the war he was exceptionally more focused, coordinating the Third Battle of Earth with an expertise to rival his father, and had gained increasing respect of both the UNSC and their allies as a capable leader. Personally heading the Battle of Installation 02, the First Battle of Jupiter, the  Third Battle of Earth, and having presence in notable other battles in the war, Lord George Hood lead the UNSC to rally together like his father had done.

By the end of the war in 2603, fears arose that because of his military prowess, he may not be open to negotiation. To the chagrin of his political rivals, he welcomed and headed the human aspect of diplomatic relations as the head of the HIGHCOM Security Committee. In only a few months, official political and military agreements had been signed and put into effect, ending the Accidental War.

Death: The Second Remnant Wars
In 2615CE, the Second set of Remnant Wars began. By this time George Hood was 94 years old. Even though he was constantly under pressure to retire from service, George felt his duties remained with the Navy. Stepping down from the position of Admiral of the Navy in 2604, he had been an Admiral in charge of several Fleets, in particular the Delta-Force Fleet.

Mammon had stayed with him all this time, as per his upgrade many decades ago. However, in 2613 it is rumoured that Mammon lost his cheeriness he had gained from the merge, and had become solemn and impassive. The reason was that, like George himself, Mammon was old, and had admitted to George that his lifespan was coming to an end. George had made light of it at the time, trying to cheer up the construct.

Five years of war ensued, during which time the Remnant Forces had been trying their previous tactic; many small skirmishes with several large battle in between. In 2620CE, the UNSC and ISE received reports that a large Remnant force was to be jumping directly to Sanghelios. Utilizing a strategy conceived by Admiral Jendon of the UNSC, a small force of combined UNSC and Sangheili ships would hold position over Sanghelios. When the Remnant Fleet slipped over Sanghelios, the Combined forces would pretend to flee to a trajectory where additional forces were lying in wait. The Remnant Fleet would then follow them, Jiralhanae infamous for hunting down retreats. The risks were enormous, and several individuals disagreed on the plan, however eventually it was pushed through.

Unfortunately, the feint didn’t work, and the Remnant Fleet slipped into the system on the opposite side to Sanghelios, and headed straight for the planet when the small force entered Slipspace, with only a handful of ISE and UNSC ships left, including the flagship of Admiral Lord George Hood. Realizing the plan had failed, George came up with a plan of his own. Speaking over the ships intercom, he ordered the crew to set up all shields (technology from the Sangheili) to the ships bow, and abandoned the ship.

The crew argued at first, however after a sharp order from the old Admiral, they finally conceded, entering the escape pods as he had ordered. Having Mammon set up the ram, his ship expertly dodged many of the enemy fire, allowing the ship to ram straight into the Remnant Vanguard with still functional engines. With a brief smile and thanking his old friend, Admiral Lord George Hood activated the ANGEL Bomb aboard the ship, obliterating himself, Mammon, and about a third of the Remnant Fleet, sending the rest of the Fleet crashing and jolting in all directions.

With their last significant assault fleet scattered, the Second Remnant Wars ended.

Final Testament
Admiral Lord George Hood is remembered as a hero on both Earth and Sanghelios, for leading humanity through times of great desperation and turmoil, and for single handedly, with help from his AI who is also remembered, saved the planet Sanghelios from certain annihilation.

Both he and Mammon have a place in the Historical Museum of Human Kind situated in London, England, and on the Step of Honour in the Nohuro district on Sanghelios.