The OUROBOROS Directive was the UNSC's plan to ensure the continuity of human civilization in the event Earth and the major human colonies fell to the Covenant. Formalized in 2541, when it became clear that the Human-Covenant War could not be won by conventional means, it outlined the main goals that needed to be achieved in order to make an exodus fleet viable.

The other major aspect of the project was the relocation of vital industries from Sol and Epsilon Eridani to star systems further away from the Covenant, along with decentralizing industrial production and the development of mobile shipyards and mining vessels. This included further surveys of outlying regions of the Human Sphere, including the Cygnus Verge.

While the end of the war provided a reprieve for humanity, it did not guarantee lasting peace. The presence of the Ark portal on Earth in particular made the human homeworld a strategic location and a potential target for hostile factions, and if the Concord of Reconciliation's political climate should shift in the future, such factions could feasibly stage another invasion of the Human Sphere and specifically Earth itself. The efforts of OUROBOROS continued, though construction on the remaining arks slowed down, and eventually, with four arkships completed, the UNSC discontinued their construction indefinitely in 2564. The project's efforts to decentralize industry continued, however, and branched off to additional directions including the decision to make the UNSC command increasingly mobile as opposed to relying on fixed groundside facilities.

Subprojects

DANDELION SEED Initiative

A top-level resiliency strategy for decentralizing the UNSC's structure in a way that even the loss of major worlds such as Earth would not be a crippling catastrophe for the UNSC and humanity overall. Carried out largely in secret, this involved both organizational changes, new technologies, and the continued relocation and mobilization of industry and the creation of population centers far out into the Cygnus Verge and other regions outside the Local Bubble.

Project HORIZON

The best-funded and most tightly controlled project of OUROBOROS, HORIZON was a joint UNSC Navy-UEG development project which eventually led to the construction of the Jormungandr-class arkships. Built in shipyards within the Sol system's asteroid belt, the arkships were to house thousands of densely-stored cryotubes and equipment for colonizing new worlds, with comparatively few "warm" crew. Additionally, they would contain various samples of Earth's ecology as well as libraries of most of human history and knowledge. In the event of imminent invasion, specifically-selected groups of people would be evacuated onto the arks and they would set off on an exodus into the void, with each traveling hundreds of light-years galactic spinward on random slipspace trajectories. Designed to operate independently for years, even decades, the arks were virtually self-sufficient but also sluggish, lightly armed and relied largely on a military escort for security. Seven arks were planned, though only two completed construction prior to the end of the Human-Covenant War.

A mission review in 2544 determined that, in spite of nearly two centuries of technological development since the Odyssey-class was laid down, the machinery needed to bootstrap a modern industrial ecosystem could not be miniaturized into a single starship. The mission review concluded that "One ship can't do everything, and if it could, it wouldn't be as efficient as two ships splitting the work."

After the reorganization, each Jorgmungandr-class arkship was to be accompanied by two to four Magellan-class exploration vessels, refitted for mining, refining, and manufacturing duty. Traxis and Jotun Heavy Industries were contracted to design a new generation of lean, compact, and flexible manufacturing equipment. Smith-class fleet tenders and Pendleton-class utility vessels were also considered, though the teething problems of the latter made them poorly suited for long-term journeys far from home.

Project GOFANNON

Administrated exclusively by the UEG's Department of Economics and Industry, Project GOFANNON was an attempt to create or transform some portion of humanity's remaining manufacturing industry into a portable form that could be taken with the migrating fleet. It was also responsible for procuring significant stores of spare parts, raw materials, and consumables such as fuel and food, which were stored in remote storage facilities located in outlying regions of the Sagittarius-Cygnus Quadrant.

The most significant product spawned by GOFANNON was "Portable and Rapid-Assembly Industrial System" (PRAIS). Championed by SinoViet Heavy Machinery, PRAIS stations were built around one of three different-sized modular frames that could accept many types of pre-existing facilities, on top of those built for their explicit use. They were designed to be light and fold up into a compact space, making it easy for a single translight ferry or capital ship to carry multiple PRAIS stations on their hull. Once they had arrived at a prospective colony site, a single Smart AI could initiate the autonomous assembly procedures and begin generalist operation. However, a human crew was still required to connect up the prefabricated facilities, as well as specialize them for extremely-niche endeavors such as zenostium refining.