Operation: ATLAS led teams of Humans and Sangheili far outside the galaxy, only which Forerunner tech would allow them to do so

With the advent of new technology based upon Forerunner Artefacts and recovered Covenant Tech from the war. The UNSC was able to upgrade their Slipspace Drives, using the new technologies and data from Cortana after Blue Team returned to Earth following the Fall of Reach as well as information from Operation: Far Storm when the Monitor of the Ark was able to manipulate the Slipspace Portal at Voi to allow ships to travel long distances within hours. This allowed for Slipspace Travel to be much faster than what it once was and paved the way for the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios to look towards another galaxy, Andromeda.

The Goal of Operation: ATLAS (Not to be confused with Operation: ATLAS VIGILANCE) was to discover and explore beyond the rim of the galaxy. Launching from the Lesser Ark in 2556, the fleet arrived in Andromeda and landed on this planet first, Kelt, due to the unique structures across its surface.

The teams set up outposts across the planet, investigating the ruins, dubbed Erebus ruins, to see what they could tell them about the planet and who the Erebus were as they, like the Forerunners in the Milky Way, disappeared many years ago. The UNSC-Sword of Sanghelios team theorised that they disappeared either for similar reasons to the Forerunners, a threat on the scale of the Flood, or that they just faded into obscurity, not wanting to be involved in the conflicts and disputes of this galaxy.

After hearing of the Created Uprising in the Milky Way through the use of superluminal communication arrays, the teams made the call to leave the planet and head back to the Milky Way to help fight against the Created, leaving behind their camps and any equipment that was not needed. To find the planet once again, a beacon was left to allow the planet to be found and studied once again.

Kelt is designed to be a map for 4v4 game modes, specifically Slayer, Breakout and CTF. The various platforms allow players to get above the lower paths as well as move across the map faster. An interesting design choice I went with was the lack of proper bases. This is inspired by Stasis, a map that also does not have proper bases for both teams.

Design-wise, I wanted a map that was very much a base camp, only better than my original map first posted here. As well as this, I wanted to change it up and have a good reason behind why a camp would have been set up here. This led to the idea of the map being in Andromeda, which was partially inspired by Mass Effect Andromeda with the whole "Head to Andromeda" idea.

This is also led to me searching for a name for a planet in Andromeda. Problem is that due to how far away Andromeda is, we do not have much information on the galaxy. After contacting a friend of mine who has much more knowledge of the subject than me, he eventually showed me a planet called KELT-1b. This planet is uninhabitable due to how close to its star it is, meaning that it is impossible to inhabit for Humans.

The ruins featured on the map are for a civilisation I made up for this map known as Erebus. These ruins are meant to be similar to Forerunner ruins but stand out next to them due to their colours and design being different.

Please leave feedback on the map and credit to ChevalierLubra for the Sanghelios Tent design used on this map. I recommend checking out their map Helios as the tent design is great