• The Honor Guard was composed entirely of Elites who directly served the Prophets and the High Council; their purpose runs analog with the role of Sangheili within the Covenant.

Like any union, there needed to be a codification and a declaration of rules and rights, especially since this measure would run cross-species. The Sangheili were already familiar with class warfare from their primitive years - the reconstitution of class and rank within the Covenant would be a natural and evolutionary progression, something very familiar to them. Likely, as a show of good will by the San ‘Shyuum, evidence suggests that the Sangheili’s language became the core language of the Covenant – which was reasonable since the Elites greatly outnumbered the frail population count of Prophets.

At this point, it is also believed that the Forerunner vessel was decommissioned and used in the construction and eventual powering of a centralized Covenant city. They would call this place High Charity. At its core, the sacred Forerunner vessel once used against the Sangheili to bring about their extinction would be offering them safety and energy - a new life. The city was built to be mobile and capable of incredibly precise slipspace travel; it would move with the Covenant fleet if needed.

Shortly after the “Writ of Union” was penned, a series of cantos depicting the formation of the Covenant, the leaders of each race came together and developed a government. The San ‘Shyuum would have three elected leaders, referred to as Hierarchs. They would serve as the spiritual leadership, underpinned by a High Council composed of both Prophets and Elites. The Elite Councilors were the highest regarded Sangheili within the Covenant’s fledgling government and they operated jointly with the Prophets, creating and enforcing the government at the highest level.

The Councilors were protected by the Honor Guard, a pinnacle class of warrior Elites who wore elaborate and vibrant armor; their powerful shapes lined the halls of the High Council chamber in the upper echelon of High Charity’s architecture. The Honor Guard’s place was critically significant, as they protected the High Council and the Hierarchs individually. It also acted as a metaphor for the Covenant as a whole: the San ‘Shyuum would lead in affairs of science and religion, while the Sangheili would operate the military and protect the Prophets.

When the government had taken considerable shape, the San ‘Shyuum Hierarchs became aware of the potential threat to their leadership and the dogma. Although they held the secrets to the Forerunner dreadnought, which we could assume was the source of their political leverage, their marriage to the Sangheili culture was potentially perilous. At any moment, the Sangheili could decide against the Covenant and with the dreadnought decommissioned, the San ‘Shyuum wouldn’t stand a chance - any serious battle would find their race extinct within days.

• The Arbiter was a mantle without equal; their tasks were composed of brutal adjudication and swift assassination. For this reason, their lives were continually in peril by their deadly occupation.

This may have been the reason the Arbiter class was created. Warriors of the highest regard within Sangheili ranks were given the title “Arbiter” and referred to as “The Blade of the Prophets.” Their loyalty was strictly to the Hierarchs and their fates were inexorably tied to their missions. Historically, the Arbiters would always die completing their missions, as their tasks were without equal in danger. When the San ‘Shyuum needed to silence a discordant voice in the Covenant, the loyal Arbiters would do that bidding and they would do so well before it became a movement or even worse - a revolution.

Militarily, the Elites held complete sway. All order fell into the hands of the Imperial Admiral, a single Sangheili of the utmost military expertise and with complete control over all of the Covenant’s fleets. This Sangheili wore silver and gold armor with intricate and mysterious Forerunner text inscribed across it. He was the highest ranking member of the Covenant’s military.

Individually, however, the fleets were operated by Supreme Commanders, localized officers who supervised their collective of Shipmasters and by proxy the hundreds of vessels within their fleet.

There were a litany of individual classes, but many were consistent across all armadas and fleets. Elite classes included blue-armored Minor Elites, red-armored Major Elites and silver-armored Ultra Elites - these have always conducted the vast majority of the Covenant’s field operations, the latter being the highest regarded and the former being the most commonly implemented. Rangers, Ossoona Spies and Special Operations teams were part of a shorter list of specialized task forces used sparingly and for very specific missions – but still representing a powerful element of the Covenant military in their own right.

The history of the Covenant shortly after their formation is bound in mystery.

We know that their search throughout the galaxy led them to more artifacts and even more information about the Forerunners. We also know that they began searching specifically for the seven Sacred Rings to bring about something they called “the Great Journey” – this, the likely culprit as the central reason the Covenant was formed in the first place.

They were looking for these intriguing ringworlds and they were intent on activating them to initiate a holy transcendence for those who believed. This was called the Great Journey and in the ancient text, the Forerunner race took this pathway toward enlightenment and ultimately godhood. Although no rings had been found yet, the Age of Discovery for the Covenant became their defining years and emboldened the bond formed by the forefathers of both species.

It wasn’t long then before they came upon other alien races - many of these kinds were blinded by ignorance and some were eager to be hostile. The first few conflicts helped the Sangheili military and by proxy, the San ‘Shyuum leadership, learn how to better tame and convert these races into allies. They knew from experience that a prolonged war between two separate species would be problematic - a war would cost time, materiel and operated counter to the religious goal of the Covenant: search and discovery.

So the Unggoy (Grunts), the Lekgolo (Hunters), the Kig-yar (Jackals), the Yanme’e (Drones) and eventually the Jiralhanae (Brutes) were all converted from their heathen and treacherous ways into willing vessels within the Covenant’s military. It was likely a very involving process for the Sangheili, as their military was required to effectively and sometimes violently bring to an end any resistance being offered by these new races.

For these ignorant beings, believing the Covenant religion was an acceptable fate opposed to their newfound masters glassing the surface of their worlds to an unrecognizable gray and black ash. For the Sangheili, however, this meant new and diverse additions to their military’s size and scope. But it didn’t come without a price. Some races, like the Jiralhanae, remained barbaric and suspect to the Sangheili - a constant source of concern because of their formidable nature and uncivilized behavior. Cross-species spats quickly became revolutions which needed to be quickly stifled. The Unggoy attempted to rebel at one point over disputes with the Kig-yar about breeding rights, a conflict which only ended when the Sangheili obliterated large portions of Balaho, the Grunt homeworld.

• The Sangheilian war machine was deadly, allowing no room for dispute or contention - even amongst fellow members of the Covenant.

Such bickering and strife became taxing over time and with the lack of any significant discoveries, the Covenant entered the Age of Doubt. Those dark years created unmatched strain for their religious body. What had been a streamlined and hopeful campaign so many centuries ago was now becoming a bloated and unstable union with no Sacred Rings to show for itself. During this time, the Great Journey was likely questioned. Maybe not out loud, as that would have been heresy, but it is likely that a good number of Sangheili thought skeptically about what they could not speak.

Then they found humanity.

In operations which were initially handled by Jiralhanae, the Covenant located and contacted a colonial world of a new race of beings – they referred to the planet as Harvest. What they found, using reverse-engineered technology that could locate their lord’s relics, was a reliquary, a treasure trove of Forerunner artifacts. To the Sangheili, much of this operation was kept in the dark. These humans were immediately regarded as enemies by the Prophets, trampling and defecating on the holy relics – ultimately destroying them before the Covenant could locate and secure their finds. The truth, however, was that two ambitious San ‘Shyuum politicians had uncovered that the relics were not machines or precious crystals, as they had been in the past. They were, in fact, the human beings themselves.

Humanity was the chosen heir to the Forerunners, not the San ‘Shyuum as their kind had once believed and hoped for. The Sangheili did not learn of this treachery until 27 years later, well after multiplied billions had lost their lives. The roles took by the two San ‘Shyuum politicians set into play a chain-reaction of events which ultimately destroyed the Covenant and brought humankind to the verge of extinction.

In the year 2525, the two politicians’ lies paid off - the newly elected Prophet of Truth and his fellow Hierarchs Regret and Mercy, the third being bribed to silence for his position, announced that the Age of Doubt had ended and that the Age of Reclamation was now at hand. Certain secrets which Harvest held, through the deceitful spectacles of the Hierarchs, convinced the High Council of two things. The first was that the Sacred Rings were within their grasp, that they would soon be discovered and the second was that humanity was an unholy and unworthy race. They would not be offered any truce or opportunity for conversion.

Instead, they would be offered only desolation.

Thus began the Human-Covenant Conflict, a war which would be fought tooth-and-nail for over a quarter of a century. Although humans did not possess the technology or the weaponry that the Covenant had, they were impressive strategists and they fought with enough heart to sway a handful of battles in their favor. Upon orders of the San ‘Shyuum Hierarchs, the Sangheili military effectively glassed any human world after searching it for artifacts.

The Elites often wondered why humanity was being slighted rather than welcomed in their search for the Sacred Rings, as they had ample opportunities in both infantry and space campaigns to interact with this strange new race. They were a compelling species and far more like the Sangheilian culture than any of the other races which the Covenant had wrangled in. Humanity would have been a perfect addition to their cause.

• Sangheili have loyally served the San ‘Shyuum in search of the Sacred Rings for many ages. Their first encounter with one, ironically, would cause the eventual collapse of their entire union.

Never-the-less, under the Prophets’ commandment and with the promise that the Great Journey was near, the Sangheili crushed each human world in their path, pushing back the species one system at a time. Eventually, humanity unleashed a powerful biological weapon - something they called “Spartans.” The weapon was a genetically and mechanically augmented variation on their own species, a super soldier which easily rivaled the Sangheili and Jiralhanae on the battlefield. Although their numbers were small at the time, fear no doubt gripped the hearts of some of those within the Covenant ranks. If a large population of these Spartans were to be unleashed, it would seriously undermine any chance for decisive victory.

The Sangheili labeled these Spartans “Demons” and their success against these creatures was bitterly fought for. Then they found some measure of success on the planet Reach. A fortress world, another site where a Forerunner artifact had been buried long ago, was found to also be a human military planet. Led by a tactical and cunning mastermind, the Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, the Covenant saw an opportunity to crush the last remnant of the Spartans on the human world. With a fleet of 317 ships, the Sangheili Commander was able to successfully fend off the attacks from 152 human warships and its twenty orbital weapon platforms, allowing ground forces to siege the world’s surface and destroy the generators which powered the platforms themselves while simultaneously attempting to retrieve the sacred artifact.

During the battle for Reach, many Sangheili believed that the last of the Spartans had been extinguished, but they would soon discover otherwise. At least one Spartan had survived and his ship, The Pillar of Autumn, escaped into slipspace. A portion of the Fleet who were not involved in glassing the planet’s surface, followed with the Commander leading the way, but when they exited slipspace they had no way of knowing what they would find.

Installation 04 or Halo, one of the long sought after Sacred Rings, was where the Covenant and humans had fatefully emerged from slipspace. The Covenant had finally found one of their rings, but the Commander, although a believer, was not deeply religious or concerned about the ring itself. His goal was to attack the humans and destroy their ship, as well as the Demon within it. By the time the Covenant were able to effectively assault the Autumn, however, the humans had already escaped to the surface of the installation with lifeboats and were laying hold of it.

The Commander unleashed all of his resources to secure the ground, but word of the Demon’s survival and success spread throughout his fleet. Then came even more tragedy: A localized Covenant detachment found what appeared to be a heavily-secured Forerunner weapon cache on the ring’s surface. They attempted to unlock it, only to find that it was not a cache, but rather a containment facility for an extremely dangerous parasite known as the Flood. While it is possible that a few religiously-inclined Sangheili had known about the Flood from ancient Forerunner text, this was their first real encounter.

The hapless event ultimately cost far more than they had ever suspected.

Another cunning warrior, Special Operations Commander Rtas ‘Vadumee, discovered more about the Flood than the Sangheili bargained for. A SpecOps team was sent by the fleet’s same Supreme Commander to the Infinite Succor, which was assumed to have been boarded by humans. When they arrived, they made contact with the Flood and a violent battle ensued. ‘Vadumee eventually escaped the ship alone, sending it hurling toward a system’s sun. His left mandibles had been severed by an infected member of his own squad armed with a deadly energy sword. This physical scar would serve as a bitter reminder of the threat the Flood posed, but on the surface of the Halo ringworld, things would fair far worse.

Not only did the humans put up an honorable resistance to the Covenant’s ground forces, but the addition of the Flood’s savage numbers complicated matters immensely. The Covenant fleet’s Supreme Commander began focusing almost solely on the parasite, and by the time he uncovered the surviving Demon’s plans it was too late. The Spartan was attempting to destroy the Sacred Ring and halt the Covenant’s progress. When he was unable to damage the facility with the installation’s own pulse generators, he returned back to their crashed ship, The Pillar of Autumn, and set off a nuclear reaction which not only tore the ringworld apart, but nearly decimated the entire fleet.

[Proceed to Part III]