Though it may seem like Zeta Halo or Installation 07 is turning up as the new kid on the block in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo Infinite, it's actually not the first time that the mysterious ring has appeared in the canon. Like the other Rings, its been around for a long time. In the lore, Zeta Halo has been silently floating around through space since the time of the Forerunners, and though ONI scientists consider ꦗits true use a mystery, for those that have read the books and other side-material, this harmless-looking location has a pretty dark and sordid past.

RELATED: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo: How Was The Covenant Formed

Not only is it completely massive and the first time the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo series has tried out the open-world aesthetic (minus the "Halo" mission from Halo: CE), Zeta Halo is aesthetically gorgeous and filled with some beautiful vistas, vast rolling hills, and towering cliffs made from Forerunner tech that's both intimidating and mind-numbingly vast in scale. It provides a chaotic playground for Master Chief to carve his way through The Banished hordes and the story that plays out through the course of the campaign on board this massive ringworld is the series at its most heartfelt and well written. For those curious about the origins of this bizarre broken apart space station, here’s everything you need to know about Zeta Halo.

What Are The Halo Rings?

Halo: Halo Ring Weapon Firing Animation

Unless you’ve completely missed the series up until this point, the Halo Rings are more than just giant circle worlds floating through space. They were originally research stations crossed with doomsday weapons that were created by an ancient alien race known as the Forerunners to combat an infectious hostile lifeform known as the Flood.

There were seven of them built millions of years ago and though initially used to try and cure the Flood infection, it was discovered that the only way to annihilate them was to starve them out, and so the Rings fired a gigantic energy pulse in unison at key points in space. The pulse cleansed nearby planets of all organic life and the Flood's sole food source whilst also wiping out The Forerunners themselves at the same time. With no way to sustain themselves or replicate, the mutagenic scourge eventually disappeared from the galaxy.

After a time, the Rings, the Ark from which all the Rings were created, and a few Shield Worlds began to seed life into the now empty galaxy, starting countless civilizations over from square one. Some of these ringworlds still contained surviving remnants of the Forerunners, Flood specimens, and a race known as The Endless.

Origins Of Zeta Halo

Halo Infinite: Zeta Halo As Seen From Space

Zeta Halo may just look like another of the Halo Rings, but what sets this particular installation apart is that, unlike its giant floating circular brethren, it was built at a Greater Ark. This caused it to be three times the size of other rings (30,000 km instead of the usual 10,000).

Its additional size allowed it to work perfectlꦯy as an enormous life-preserving station for countless species fro൲m across the galaxy, mostly Humans. Every species co-existed peacefully on the rings for a time, but then things inevitably got worse.

Brief History Of Zeta Halo

Halo 5: Zeta Halo Appearing In The Secret Legendary Unlockable Ending

The complete history of Zeta Halo is deep, dark, and rather depressing. There’s a lot of it t🥂o condense down, so instead of going through it all in great detail, here&r🦹squo;s an outline of some of the key events that shaped Zeta Halo from a verdant paradise into a war-stricken ringworld.

Pre-Forerunner-Flood War

  • Zeta Halo is built by the Forerunners at the Greater Ark in 98,445 BCE-97 as a gigantic Lifeworker Sanctuary to preserve specimens.
  • The worsening Forerunner-Flood War results in the ring being put under command of Mendicant Bias by Master Builder Faber. Faber then uses the Ring's Human inhabitants for experiments involving immunity to the Flood.
  • 60 years later Mendicant Bias interrogates a Precursor survivor the Forerunners have locked in a cell. Bias and Faber are swayed by the creature, eventually unwittingly giving it and the Flood freedom to move around the station. Master Builder Faber continued his experiments before being arrested and taken to trial by the Forerunner Judicials.
  • The remaining Humans on the Ring suffer a societal collapse and are either harvested for experimentation by the remaining Forerunner staff or are taken by the Flood.
  • Mendicant Bias 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:suffers from Rampancy and takes control of Zeta Halo, but as part of a control program to prevent the Ring from falling into the wrong hands, Zeta Halo starts on a path to collide with a planet. It avoids this fate, instead sustaining massive crippling damage.
  • Mendicant Bias is shut down by the IsoDidact, who then has the Ring discard large chunks that are damaged, bringing it down to 10,000 km before it's sent to the Great Ark for repairs. With surviving specimens and remaining Lifeworkers moving onto the Ark.
  • The Precursor and a number of Graveminds are quarantined on the Ring as it's turned into a silent memorial tomb floating silently through space until it's fired in concert with the other Halo Rings at the end of the war.

Post-Forerunner-Flood War

  • Zeta Halo is turned into a prison for a race known as the Endless.
  • 2552: Zeta Halo is reactivated after sitting in dormancy during the Battle for Instillation 05 (Halo Wars) and put on standby.
  • 2553: A research group led by Luther Mann arrive on Zeta Halo after its location is discovered by ONI.
  • 2555: The Zeta Halo Project is activated and a large research team of around 300 scientists is sent to Zeta Halo.
  • 2559: The fight for Zeta Halo at the beginning of Halo Infinite, with Cortana's arrival at the ring along with the Banished and a UNSC task force set on taking her down, occurs. The Ring receives substantial damage in the conflict, with a noticeably large shard being taken out of it.
  • 2560: Master Chief is discovered floating above Zeta Halo by Echo 216.

Though it has a long and violent history, it does help add some substantial weight to the setting of Halo Inf🎃inite and makes you think more about the environment and the possibilities of where the story coul𒈔d go in the future since such a small portion of this massive ring has been covered in the game.

Other Halo Rings

Halo: Multiple Forerunner Halo Rings Floating Around An Ark

Zeta Halo is one of the seven original Halo rings created by The Forerunners during the height of the Forerunner-Flood Wars, with each eventually being used as a research faci♉lity of s🍎ome type.

S♌ome have played a more notable part than others in the canon and there’s a lot of pretty horrible stuff that happe♓ned on some of these gigantic artificial worlds. Here are the other Rings and their current states.

Installation 00

Heavily damaged before being repaired and continually contested by the ꦅUNSC and The Banished during the events of Halo Wars 2.

Halo: Instillation 00 The Progenitor Of The Rings

Installation 01

One of several rings powe🍬red up in 2555 but later set to inactive.

Halo: Halo Ring Installation 01 Floating In Space

Installation 02

Also, one of several rings powered up in 2🦩555 but later set to inactive.

Halo: Ring Installation 02 Floating Near An Unknown Planet

Installation 03

The location of the buried Composer and the site of a 🥂large UNSC Research Facility. It would later sustain substantial damage during the conflict with The Didact before slipstreaming away under control of a Monitor to an unknown location.

Halo: Halo Ring Installation 03 Peacefully Floating In Space

Installation 04

Appearing in Halo: CE, the Ring was destroyed by Master Chief detonating the UNSC Pillar Of Autumn's engines.

Halo: Halo Ring 04 Before It Gets Blown Up By Master Chief

Installation 05

Featured in Halo 2♊ and later 3, its ownership passed hands until it was quaraꦑntined and then later re-used as the holographic training grounds for Spartans, typically Type-IV’s.

Halo: Halo Ring 05 The Location Of Halo Multiplayer Matches

Installation 06

Put on pe🍸rmanent standby mode after Master Chief deactivated the Halo A📖rrays firing sequence.

Halo: Halo Ring 06 Floating Near An Unknown Planetoid

This is everything you ♒need to know about Ze൲ta Halo, the Ring system, and those that inhabit them, as the series goes on with the new threat of The Endless surfacing, no doubt more history is going to be unearthed about these ancient weapons and their dark pasts.

NEXT: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Halo: What Happened To Cortana?