United Nations Space Command

The United Nations Space Command is a human military, exploratory, and scientific organization. Originally the spaceborne military arm of the United Nations formed in response to widespread conflict in the Sol system in the mid-22nd century, the UNSC was incorporated into the United Earth Government upon its formation in 2170 and subsequently acted as its primary space-going arm in the subsequent centuries. Shortly after the onset of the Human-Covenant War in 2525, the UNSC was granted unprecedented emergency powers, assuming the UEG's governing functions in order to facilitate the defense of humanity from the existential threat of the Covenant.

In the postbellum years, the UNSC attempted to cede its power back to the UEG, with limited success. In the vastly changed political landscape of the post-war era, the UEG was deemed ineffectual and anachronistic, unable to adequately answer to the pressing challenges of that era such as rebuilding humanity's economic base and military power, relocating the millions of refugees displaced by the war, or establishing effective diplomatic bridges to sympathetic post-Covenant polities. These challenges prompted the creation of the Phoenix Initiative as an overarching civilian authority to oversee the reclamation process, albeit with the UNSC retaining considerable operational autonomy.