History of Epsilon Indi system Halo Lore

The Epsilon Indi system consists of the star Epsilon Indi and five planets orbiting it, all in close orbit. One of which, Harvest, was habitable.

It is at the edges of UNSC-controlled space, approximately six weeks away from Madrigal, the nearest human colony, and a little more than two months from Reach.

History

Human Colonization
The system was colonized by the UNSC in 2468. The fact that Harvest was habitable without any terraforming necessary was enough to elicit a colonization effort to a such faraway world. The UNSC established a population of three hundred thousand citizens and an orbital platform, and was considered to be on the frontier of explored space.

First Contact
In 2525, the Covenant discovered the system. It was Humanity's first contact with the Covenant and after a violent first contact, the Covenant glassed most of the surface. In 2526, a second battle erupted in the system and the UNSC took it back from the Covenant.

Siege
The Covenant attacked again later in the same year, and were not driven out from the system, thus starting a five year long siege. The siege culminated in 2531 when the UNSC Spirit of Fire arrived to fight off the Covenant in Harvest's northern polar regions and discovered, through an old Forerunner artifact, a Covenant plot on the Procyon system world of Arcadia.

Fate
As of 2553, it is unclear who currently possesses the Epsilon Indi system. Planet Harvest is dead, and so neither the UNSC nor the Covenant has any real tactical value for the system, short of orbital resources that are likely easier to find than in one of the most remote star systems from Earth.

Trivia

• A system by the name Epsilon Indi exists in real life, but it is only 11 light years from Earth, whereas Epsilon Indi in Halo: Contact Harvest is not given an exact distance from anywhere but is described to be the furthest outer colony world, six weeks away from Madrigal, which is approximately 84 light years away from Sol, and two months from Reach, which is 10.5 light years from Sol. Therefore it is possible that the Epsilon Indi system in the Halo universe is situated differently than the real-world one.
  
• Today, the real-life Epsilon Indi System is part of a list of systems most likely to have planets that can support life.