Cloaking (Earth-5875)



"One of those things is inside, and it's invisible!"

- - Thomas Reyes

Cloak, also known as active camouflage (often shortened to active camo), and invisibility, is a form of technological camouflage designed to conceal objects from visual detection through rapid environmental adaption. Though it was invented by the Covenant, the UNSC have since adapted the technology for their SPARTANs. In truth, cloaking is not invisibility, but rather a technology that allows its user to blend with the environment by mimicking the environment surrounding it.

Covenant cloaking
"Show yourselves, assassins! The scent of your cloak is faint, but it still fouls the air."

- - Atriox

Cloaks uses energy field able to bend light around its user, making them effectively tangent to the environment. Some armors, such as those built to Special Operations, Arbiters, jiralhanae Stalkers and Zealots possess built-in cloak generators. However, these armors have a drawback from the energy shielding, having weaker defenses. Duo to their ancient nature, armors of the Arbiters have weaker and less durable cloaking.

Majority of the Covenant's ships and vehicles are equipped with cloaks, such as Type-52 Phantoms and Type-32 Ghosts. Larger ships, such as CCS-class battlecruiser, CAS-class assault carrier, and even entire fleets, can be hidden from sight through the use of cloaking or stealth pylons, which the Covenant used when a planet had religious or large strategic importance, favoring silence over might.

UNSC active camouflage
The UNSC developed its own forms of cloaking from reverse-engineered Covenant technology, which they call active camouflage. Unlike the technology employed by the Covenant, the UNSC's active camouflage do not use light-bending properties, and as a drawback they do not blend as well to their environment. Human-based cloaking operates on entirely different principles compared to that of the Covenant, which is effectively done through the use of photoreactive panels that can mimic the environment much like a chameleon.

The SPARTAN-II MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor and the SPARTAN-III Semi-Powered Infiltration Armor (SPI) utilize photoreactive panels so they can hide in the shadows of any surface, also concealing infrared signatures, which, coped with the stealth training of both supersoldiers, allowed them to be even more deadly. Headhunter teams utilize a more advanced version of the panels, which was more similar to the Covenant's cloaking, although it lasted for only a few minutes.

UNSC prowlers utilize texture buffers to conceal themselves in space, hiding its heat and radar signatures. However, the technology is still not perfect, and as a result it still can be revealed in backgrounds that face constant changes, such as the atmosphere of a gas giant. The Office of Naval Intelligence and the UNSC developed and currently develop newer ships that are able to make the drawbacks obsolete, such as the ONI PRO-49776 and the recently formed UNSC Normandy, developed in cooperation with the Swords of Sanghelios.