Luminary (Earth-5875)

Luminaries are forerunner constructs able to scan and locate orokin artifacts and installations. The Covenant sought for Luminaries during their existence with each world they discovered, reverse-engineering them to serve aboard each Covenant starship.

History
Covenant Luminaries~are shaped akin to three silver pyramids, with two smaller ones supporting an upside down larger in the epicenter. There were several Luminary renditions, with the most primitive being the reason the Covenant discovered the lekgolo. The artifacts held deep religious depth to the Covenant, and as such, tempering with them would lead to a death penalty. Covenant folk wisdom said that "A Luminary did not lie", referring to its capability of locating forerunner items.

Each Covenant starship possessed dozens of onboard Luminaries, with thousands having already been found by the hegemony. The Luminary aboard the Minor Transgression was what led the Covenant to the human colony Shanxi thanks to the presence of forerunner ruins, leading to the First Contact War. Upon the Luminary scanning humans, the Hierarchs misinterpreted the Luminary's sign as "Reclamation" rather than "Reclaimer". After the Battle of Meridian in late 2551, the Prophet of Regret's forces found a hidden Luminary which pointed to the location of the Ark and its Portal on the planet the forerunner called Erde-Tyrene. In the search for glory, Regret hid this discovery from his fellow Hierarchs and took the Fleet of Sacred Consecration to Erde-Tyrene, unaware it was Earth, the homeworld of humanity, leading to the Battle of Earth.

The VECTOR-class MJOLNIR was developed by the UNSC so that SPARTANs are able to communicate with Luminaries, which saw great use during the search of artifacts in the ruins of Installation 04 on Basis.