Covenant (Earth-5875)

"Your destruction is the will of the Gods... and we are their instrument."

- The Covenant declaring the First Contact War against humanity

The Covenant was a religious hegemony consisting of multiple extraterrestrial species that controlled a large portion of the Orion Arm and beyond in the Milky Way galaxy. It was originally a mutual alliance between the san'shyuum and the sangheili following the signature of the Writ of Union, only to expand and include six other client species, united in the worship of the forerunners as gods and the Halo Array as tools of transcendence. After making contact with humanity, the Covenant waged a genocidal war against them following an intricate plot by the Hierarchs to hide a discovered connection with the forerunners. This eventually led to internal conflicts, that, coped with the human resistance, the discovery of two Halo rings and the emergence of the xenomorphs, led to the Covenant's downfall and ultimate dissolution.

History
"The First Age: Ignorance and Fear. The Second Age: Rivalry and Bloodshed. The Third Age: Humility and Brotherhood. The Fourth Age: Wonder and Understanding. The Fifth Age: Obedience and Freedom. The Sixth Age: Faith and Patience. The Seventh Age: Journey and Salvation."

- - Maccabeus

War of Wills
In their ancient past, the san'shyuum came to revere the forerunners as gods on their homeplanet Janjur Qom duo to the numerous artifacts they found. However, the populations became divided on how to deal with these items, and as such were divided in two factions, the Stoics and the Reformists. While the Stoics believed that the san'shyuum were not allowed to touch or tamper with forerunner artifacts, as they were "above them", the Reformists had more progressive views, and believed they should manipulate the technology to improve their species' lives.

Such an ideological difference led to the War of Wills in 2200 BCE, seeing the victory of the Reformists, who took the forerunner Dreadnought left at Janjur Qom and settled for the stars. Not long after, the Reformist san'shyuum encountered several gas mines within the vicinity of their home system, where they made first contact with an intelligent alien species: the huragok. The Reformists soon noticed the docile nature of the huragok and took them as their slaves aboard the Dreadnought, where they maintained the ship and served san'shyuum families.

War of Beginnings
"So full of hate were our eyes That none of us could see Our war would yield countless dead But never victory So let us cast arms aside And like discard our wrath Thou, in faith, will keep us safe Whilst we find the path."

- - The Writ of Union It wasn't until 938 BCE, the Reformists found the planet Ulgethon, where they encountered the sangheili, discovering the planet to be one of the species' colonies. Upon landing on the planet, they took notice of the abundance of forerunner artifacts that were left behind by the forerunners to study it. However, the sangheili also worshiped the forerunners as gods, and, unlike the Reformists, had divergent ideological views on the handling of the relics, which soon developed into the War of Beginnings in 938 BCE, when an Arbiter decapitated all members of a san'shyuum embassy, delivering their heads back to the Reformists.

Much like the san'shyuum Stoics, the sangheili believed every forerunner relic to be sacred beyond measuring, and thus that they should not be touched or manipulated by lesser beings. The sangheili attacked the san'shyuum as soon as they could, and the War of Beginnings raged on for centuries. During the conflict, the sangheili had both a numeric and physical advantage. The military tactics of the sangheili surpassed that of the san'shyuum, and one sangheili warrior was worth ten san'shyuum soldiers, as they were much stronger and faster. However, the san'shyuum had more advanced technology, huragok that could repair and maintain their military technology, and control over the Dreadnought, which was able to tear down hundreds of sangheili warriors and ships.

As the war continued with no apparent end, both species came to fear ultimate annihilation on the two sides. The sangheili feared the Dreadnought and their possible extinction at its power, while the san'shyuum feared for their existence with their dwindling numbers and inability to sustain their females and children. The war became so devastating that the sangheili collectively agreed to abandon their own religious beliefs and study and incorporate forerunner technology to their arsenal to avoid total destruction. Such an act allowed the sangheili to go stalemate against the san'shyuum, but the Dreadnought still proved to be unstoppable, and so the sangheili unwillingly surrendered.

Even in the past, sangheili held numerous beliefs related to honor and battles, and so they respected a worthy adversary. After the end of the war and the sangheili's surrender, the san'shyuum proposed an alliance between the two species. In 852 BCE, a truce between the two species, between the sangheili and san'shyuum leaders Pelahsar the Strident and High Lord Mken 'Scre'ah'ben, where both sides agreed to move on their past crimes against each and cooperate towards an alliance: the result was the ratification of the Writ of Union and the formation of the Covenant. For the next decades, the sangheili homeplanet Sanghelios served as the capital remained the center of the Covenant, as the two forces used their own engineering tactics and the huragok to build a mobile capital city for the alliance, High Charity.

Contacts and conversion
"Those we encountered in our search were compelled to join our Union. To take part in a movement that promised freedom for allegiance, salvation for service!"

- - Prophet of Regret The founding of the Covenant and the end of the War of Beginnings marked the First Age of Reconciliation. The next era was the First Age of Conversion, marked by the Covenant's expansion through the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. In 784 BCE, the Covenant encountered the lekgolo on Rentus, one of the many moons of Te, the lekgolo's homeworld. As soon as the two sides found each other, the Covenant immediately declared violence against the lekgolo after discovering they were devouring forerunner structures on the moon, leading to the Taming of the Lekgolo. While the lekgolo proved difficult to be wiped out duo to their ability to bond with each other to form more powerful forms, such as the mgalekgolo, the Covenant had naval superiority and the lekgolo were forced to join and be indoctrinated into the Covenant after the hegemony threatened to glass Te and eliminate them all.

In 122 BCE, the Covenant discovered the kig-yar in the Y'Deio system, and a conflict between the two soon started when the kig-yar went into immediate aggression in an attempt to drive the intruders outside their home system. During the conflict, kig-yar pirates and the militias of Eayn and T'vao, long enemies, joined forces in the face of the bigger enemy. While the Covenant was easily able to quell the kig-yar, the knowledge over the system's many abnormally dense asteroid belt, which the pirates and militia used for hiding. The two forces eventually agreed to end the fighting and make a truce: the kig-yar would join the Covenant as mercenaries, not out of faith, earning commissions by the Covenant High Council so they could engage into the hegemony's service.

In 1112, the unggoy were discovered by the Covenant on their homeplanet Balaho, and they were soon to give up upon to the alien invaders duo to their superior firepower, and were forced to join the Covenant as laborers. Not long after, in 1262, the Unggoy Rebellion occurred when some kig-yar rendered a number of female unggoy infertile as a revenge for the unggoy dispatching kig-yar homes in High Charity because of their large numbers. During the rebellion, the unggoy proved to be deadly opponents when fighting together, and their damage was so massive that the Hierarchs had to name an Arbiter to put an end to the rebellion. Under the orders of the Arbiter, the Covenant partially glassed the surface of Balaho, hoping to end the resistance before further damage could be done. Upon seeing the death of thousands of their own, the unggoy in High Charity surrendered, and those who survived were integrated into the Covenant as warriors.

In 1544, the Covenant discovered the yanme'e on their homeplanet Palamok. The yanme'e had already achieved interplanetary colonization, and first contact between the two resulted in a conflict that led to heavy casualties on both sides, but specially the yanme'e. Despite the yanme'e enormous numbers and swarm tactics, they were unprepared for the deadly and advanced armament of the Covenant, losing millions of their warriors during the war. The Hierarchs were eventually able to found a way to communicate with the yanme'e Queens, and after threatening them, which would result on the loss of numerous hives, they agreed to be inducted into the Covenant as warriors and laborers.

The jiralhanae were the last species to be inducted into the Covenant, having been discovered by the hegemony in 2492. When the Covenant arrived at Doisac, their homeworld, the jiralhanae were fighting in the First Immolation, a massive civil war between master packs. Many packs, upon seeing the Covenant, fought back, but were decimated duo to their primitive weaponry and warriors in comparison to the rest of the Covenant. After discovering of the Covenant's religion, most jiralhanae decided to join the aliens in search of meaning and theology in their lives, while those that continued resisting were easily defeated and absorbed into the Covenant.

First Contact War
"Your destruction is the will of the Gods... and we are their instrument."

- - The Covenant's declaration of war after the First Battle of Shanxi In 2525, during the 23rd Age of Doubt, the Covenant encountered humanity on Shanxi, resulting in the First Battle of Shanxi. While many members of the Covenant, including those of the High Council, believed that the new species would be a good addition to the hegemony, the Hierarchs - the Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret had other plans: after discovering a mysterious connection between humanity and the forerunners, the Prophet of Truth believed that such revelation would lead to the fall of the Covenant, as it directly contradicted their faith and religion, totally invalidating the Great Journey and removing his power. As such Truth kept this revelation from his fellow Hierarchs, and, spurred by a violent first contact, Truth had the other Hierarchs agree with his idea of declaring humanity an affront to the forerunners, demanding for the genocide of the entire species. This led to the First Contact War, which saw billions of deaths in both sides of the conflict and the eventual crumbling of the Covenant.

The war of extermination waged on for the next 33 years, with the Covenant expanding through human space and seeking their worlds to glass them and purge all life, marking glyphs of the Path into them as a symbol of the Covenant's devotion to the forerunners. The Unified Earth Government had its power passed to the United Nations Space Command, which was able to slow down the progress of the Covenant in the form of the Cole Protocol and offensive operations undertaken by SPARTAN-IIs and SPARTAN-IIIs, such as Operation TORPEDO and Operation FIRST STRIKE, though always at the cost of their own soldiers. The Cole Protocol enabled the Covenant from finding other colonies, as well humanity's homeworld, Earth.

After the Covenant continued losing their numbers despite being the winners of the war, many sangheili started to question why was extermination carried against humanity, as opposed to conversion after conflict, as was the case with the Covenant's other member-species. Even though they were being annihilated, humanity stood strong against their enemies until the very end, including the SPARTANs, massive human soldiers clad in power armor that managed to stand toe to toe against sangheili, jiralhanae and mgalekgolo warriors in the battlefield, which earned them the name of "Demons". While the human heresies were no match to the Covenant as a whole, the repercussions of humanity's struggles caused a great deal of doubt among many citizens of the Covenant regarding the wisdom of the Hierarchs and their goals. These doubters and potential troublemakers were observed by the Hierarchs' spies. Most notably, major internal rebellions occurred during the war against humanity, such as the Sixteenth Unggoy Disobedience, the founding of the Banished by the jiralhanae Chieftain Atriox following the Covenant's careless attitude towards his pack, which all died in battle, the breakaway faction of the kig-yar pirate-king Krith, and the heretic breakway faction led by sangheili artifact retriever Sesa 'Refumee after he and his warriors discovered the truth of the Halo Array by 343 Guilty Spark.

After the one month long Fall of Reach, the Covenant destroyed the humanity's biggest planet outside of Earth itself, delivering a crushing blow to the UNSC after the loss of 80% of their military bases. After the battle was over, the Fleet of Particular Justice, led by Fleetmaster Thel 'Vadamee, responsible for leading the Fall of Reach, followed the single vessel, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, which made a blind slipspace jump, leading themselves and the Covenant fleet to Installation 04, one of the Covenant's holy rings. Upon discovering the ring, the Covenant celebrated and fought against the humans for control of it, but their victory was short-lived when they accidentally released the dormant xenomorphs. The UNSC fought back, and its Demon, John-117, was able to destroy the ring after detonating the fusion engines of the Pillar of Autumn. As punishment for his failure in securing Halo, 'Vadamee was branded with the Mark of Shame, and later made an Arbiter by the Hierarchs.

Following the destruction of Installation 04, the Prophet of Regret accidentally discovered Earth after searching he and his fleet were led to the planet by a Luminary they found on Meridian. As he was not expecting humans to be living on the planet, he and his fleet were ill-prepared for the subsequent invasion, and upon landing on the city of New Mombasa in search of the portal to the Ark, Regret performed an emergency slipspace jump, leading both his Covenant forces and the UNSC to Installation 05. Upon arriving on the ring, a battle between the two forces ensued, and Regret was murdered by the Demon before he could activate the Halo.

Shortly after, the Prophet of Truth used of Regret's death and the sangheili's failure to protect him to enact the Changing of the Guard, replacing the sangheili with the jiralhanae in the Covenant's Honor Guard. In fact, Truth was doubting the sangheili's loyalty to the Covenant for years ever since the beginning of the First Contact War, as they were asking too much about the nature of the war, and merely used the death of his fellow Hierarch as an excuse for expelling the sangheili for the jiralhanae, who desired positions of power in the Covenant for their mistreatment by the sangheili and their blind obedience to the Hierarchs. This angered both the san'shyuum and sangheili High Councilors, with the latter threatening to resign from the High Council.

Great Schism
"Betrayal! Our people have been betrayed by the Hierarchs and their savage puppets! You have seen what they have done, how they stroke down our faith and our leaders! And you know what we must do in the face of such betrayal. Our war against these deceivers starts now!"

- - Atoner Concurrently with the Changing of the Guard, the jiralhanae were given even more power when the Prophet of Truth and the Prophet of Mercy gave them command over the fleets of the Covenant. Once they amassed enough power, Truth ordered them to carry out a genocide against the sangheili, starting with the sangheili High Councilors. After being summoned to the Control Room in order to witness the start of the Great Journey, most High Councilors were slaughtered by Tartarus and his jiralhanae warriors, and those who survived were made prisoners. This marked the beginning of the Great Schism: the sangheili were hunted down by the jiralhanae loyal to the Hierarchs, leading to the sangheili revolting with the help of some unggoy, mgalekgolo and huragok who chose to stay at their side. This proved to be a problem for Truth and Mercy, who did not count on the speed the sangheili would recover from the first blow.

Battles of gigantic proportions then ensued across Covenant space, from the Covenant's colonies, to High Charity and Installation 05. All the while sangheili and jiralhanae-led forces battled against one another, another threat soon appeared, bringing doom to the mobile city. The UNSC In Amber Clad, controlled by xenomorphs, performed a slipspace jump to High Charity following the lowering of its shields during the battle, and started a large-scale outbreak within the city. Before the Hierarchs could escape, the Prophet of Mercy was attacked and impregnated by a Facehugger, being left to die by Truth so he could escape. The city and its billions of civilian and military inhabitants were quickly overrun by the xenomorphs, who converted the city to a massive hive. The loss of High Charity came at the worst possible moment for humanity, completely crippling the already fractured Armada. The loss of the city also marked the near extinction of the san'shyuum: most of the species, with merely three million individuals, lived in High Charity, and most were killed or used as incubators by the xenomorphs during the attack.

These losses led the sangheili to pursue a tentative alliance with humanity. After Arbiter Thel 'Vadam discovered the truth about the Halo Array, he rallied the pursued sangheili, and alongside Rtas 'Vadum, founded the Swords of Sanghelios. Alongside the surviving crew of the In Amber Clad, they managed to stop the firing of Installation 05 at the hands of Tartarus and his jiralhanae. While their alliance was uneasy, the Swords and the UNSC learned to work with and rely on each other by mutually focusing on defeating the Covenant and the xenomorph, under the command of the Gravemind. The Prophet of Truth escaped in the Dreadnought and headed to Earth, taking off the power of High Charity. With the help of the synthetic Cortana, John-117 was able to board the ship right before it flew away and entered slipspace, while the Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity destroyed each other.

Final battle
"I... am... TRUTH!! The voice of the Covenant! And so, you must be silenced."

- - The Prophet of Truth and Thel 'Vadam Even after the fall of High Charity, Truth and those who remained loyal assembled in the Fleet of Certain Fulfillment, and upon arriving on Earth, they focused their efforts into glassing the site that the Prophet of Regret was searching for, finding the Excession. Truth landed the Dreadnought in the middle of the portal, awaiting for its activation. The UNSC was able to destroy many of the fleet's ships, but they became completely exhausted afterwards, and despite their best efforts, Truth was able to activate the Excession, opening a portal that led the Dreadnought and his remaining ships to the Ark. Delayed with the arrival of a xenomorph-controlled ship that initiated a small outbreak on Earth, the UNSC and the newly-arrived Swords of Sanghelios were able to follow the Fleet of Certain Fulfillment to the Ark in an effort to stop him from activating the entire Halo Array.

As soon as he arrived on the Ark, Truth barricaded himself inside the Citadel, the control center of activation of the Halos, preparing for the Great Journey. The UNSC and the Swords of Sanghelios were able to break through his defenses, but were surprised with the arrival of the xenomorph-infested High Charity, that, upon crash-landing on the Ark, immediately started an outbreak through the surface. The UNSC/Swords of Sanghelios alliance ignored it in order to stop Truth as fast as they could. In a last line of defense, Truth's forces were completely destroyed by a short-lived, temporary alliance between John-117, Thel 'Vadam, and the xenomorphs, all meant to stop the activation of the Halos. In his final minutes of life, Truth was able to initiate the firing sequence of the Halos, but he was attacked by a Facehugger that impregnated him, and lost his forces by the alliance. John cancelled the activation. Impregnated and hopeless, the Prophet of Truth was killed by Thel 'Vadam with an energy sword in the chest, killing him and the Chestbuster within his body, gaining his vengeance and ending the Covenant once and for all.

Splintering
"What does it even mean to be "Covenant" anymore? A hundred warlords claim they rule the Covenant, but each of them leads only a small faction."

- - Zef 'Trahl With the death of the Prophet of Truth and the destruction of the Fleet of Certain Fulfillment at the hands of the Swords of Sanghelios' Fleet of Retribution at the Ark, the Covenant as an entity was completely gone. The very few surviving san'shyuum, now critically endangered, disappeared or went into hiding, with only very few individuals being sighted by the other species ever since. Concurrently, the other species scattered. Even though 'Vadam and 'Vadum managed to secure the alliance of millions of sangheili and continued to aim for peace and cooperation with humanity, ideological conflicts soon broke in Sanghelios leading to a massive civil war known as the Blooding Years, with many sangheili zealots and warlords forming their own factions. Majority of the jiralhanae continued fighting the sangheili in the Great Schism with no end in sight, although others continued to serve as slaves in sangheili worlds. Most kig-yar returned to piracy, raiding and trading, while most unggoy and mgalekgolo became members of the Swords of Sanghelios and aiming for peace wit humans, although many joined the Covenant splinter factions. Majority of the yanme'e sought to exclude themselves from the larger galactic problems and returned to their home in the Napret system, and most huragok disappeared and fled, but no one knew where. Some former civilians of the Covenant sought asylum on surviving human colonies and Earth.

Many former leaders or revolutionists of the Covenant attempted to seize control of the former military technology of the Covenant for themselves, forming factions that they claimed to be the new versions of the Covenant, but having nowhere the same level of power as the dissolved hegemony. Many chose to retreat from galactic and interstellar affairs and simply moved away from notice, using the technology they to protect their own worlds or ships. Planets, resources and intact ships of the Covenant were of great value to sangheili, jiralhanae, or kig-yar warlords that sought power. Despite the fall of the Covenant, many of its species continued to adhere to the Path and worship the forerunners as gods - either choosing to live a more pacifist view towards or it, or continuing aggression towards humans.

Government and politics
For most of its existence, the san'shyuum and the sangheili stood as the ruling class of the Covenant, although the san'shyuum held most of the political power within the empire duo to being "the voice of the Gods". WithAfter the Great Schism, the sangheili were cast out from the Covenant and replaced by the jiralhanae as the second ruling class. With ten government echelons, the High Council stood as the highest, which, before the Schism, was led by a triumverate of san'shyuum Hierarchs and consisted of two hundred sangheili commanders and san'shyuum ministers. The Hierarchs held complete political and religious power within the Covenant, and with the rise of a new Age, so were appointed three new Hierarchs. For them to assume their power, the appointed san'shyuum need to receive the blessing from the Oracle aboard the Dreadnought, at the center of High Charity. The Oracle had not spoken for thousands of years before the outbreak of the First Contact War, and as such Hierarchs could only ascend to their ranks via bribing, blackmailing, and manipulation, or after the death of a prior Hierarch.

The High Council consisted of both san'shyuum and sangheili High Councilors. The High Council was the central theocratical and decision-making body within the Covenant. Below the High Council are a series of ministries that are assigned with a single, yet important role within Covenant society. These ministries are led by a san'shyuum minister, who are in turn aided by vice ministers. Stewards serve under both ministers.

While officially equal as founding species of the Covenant, the san'shyuum and the sangheili always had an uneasy coexistence with one another, and as such, a series of political infighting and manipulation for power occured within the government, something which the population of the Covenant was mostly kept in the dark about. This stems back to the officialization of the Writ of Union, where the begrudged sangheili accepted an alliance with the san'shyuum knowing that it meant their surrender to their long-time enemies during the War of Beginnings. For the rest of the history of the Covenant, many high-ranking san'shyuum politicians sought to manipulate the sangheili and keep them both without strong leaders and critical thinking to stay subservient to their power. One of the biggest examples was the perversion of the Arbiter title, once a position that aspired great honor and power within sangheili society, to a badge of shame and dishonor, but above all, a mean to silence those who may pose a threat to the power of the Hierarchs. Sangheili commanders who had considerable influence within the Covenant were relegated to exile into fringe territories of the empire, such as the case of Imperial Admiral Xytan 'Jar Wattinree, forced to quell small guerrillas formed by the Banished. The distrust between the two species eventually turned into a war with the Great Schism.

Religion and culture
The Covenant's society was based on a distinct caste-based system with a strong theocratic focus, with positions of power and the hierarchy being solely based on one's own species. The san'shyuum and the sangheili served as the Covenant's religiopolitical and military leaders, while all others served as expendable warriors and manual laborers.

The entirety of the Covenant's culture and religion, the Path, was based on the worship and reverence of the forerunners as gods. During their ancient past, the san'shyuum were able to decipher large sums of data stored aboard the Dreadnought, a forerunner Keyship, on their planet Janjur Qom. However, they were unable to fully understand the meanings of the glyphs they found, incorrectly interpreting that activating the Halo Array would transcend them to immortality in a process known as the "Great Journey", incorrectly based upon the "Great Journey" the very few living forerunners underwent once they activated the Halo rings, not understanding that the array was created to destroy the xenomorphs and all living species in the Milky Way galaxy. They concluded the forerunners achieved godhood, leaving the other species of the galaxy to do the same once they found their technology, and so the Covenant devoted itself to locate and recovering anything they could find from the forerunners. Through its history, the Covenant had declared war against its current member species, forcing them into the hegemony duo to their non-compliance into joining the hegemony and accepting the Path, with the most recent being humanity, though at the cost of extermination.

Commerce in the Covenant was used as an economic form, with the hegemony's cohesion grounded on the belief that one should work hard to gain and share their forerunner technology. All members of the Covenant, including civilians, were given employment or services, which they exchanged for goods and personal necessities, with service for salvation being the main motivation for all of the empire's trillions of inhabitants. This did not stop discrimination, however, as "lesser species", which weren't either san'shyuum or sangheili, had no representative power.

The Covenant added new species to its ranks either after conflicts of conversion, or if they pledged their alliance and faith to the Covenant and the Great Journey. All member species were, essentially, enslaved by the Covenant, which forced them to a live completely different ways of life and have their species' cultural identities stolen and erased. With millennia, the member species worked together by the belief on the Path, with the enslaved races, with the exception of the kig-yar, being forced to accept the Path after being driven off their original faiths, or lack of. Despite this, some species benefited from their forced inclusion in some ways, like the unggoy and the jiralhanae, as, despite their enslavement, they benefited from the advanced technology provided the Covenant, including becoming space-faring. The species were used, both in civilian life and the military, for their natural skills instead of being accepted as a part of active society.

Species
The Covenant was composed of numerous species from different parts of the Milky Way galaxy, organized within a caste system established by the san'shyuum. They were barely united, with the only common point being their blind faith towards the Path and its Great Journey.

San'Shyuum
The san'shyuum, also known as "Prophets" to humans, were the political and religious leaders of the Covenant who exerted complete control over the hegemony. Despite being physically weak, the san'shyuum's power came from their dominance over the hegemony and the control over scavenged forerunner technology while giving the task of conquest and addition of other species to the sangheili. Alongside the sangheili, the san'shyuum were the leading members of the Covenant High Council.

Sangheili
The sangheili, also known as "Elites" to humans, were the leaders of the Covenant Armada for most of its existence, until the outbreak of the Great Schism, and the second leading species of the Covenant, only below the san'shyuum. Alongside the san'shyuum, they founded the Covenant, were the leading members of the Covenant High Council, and were the only species permitted to construct and command starships of the Covenant, with a mixed-species crew. After the Schism, they were expelled from the Covenant, and joined forces with humanity to stop the Covenant from activating the Ark.

Jiralhanae
The jiralhanae, also known as "Brutes" to humans, were the most recent species added to the Covenant, serving as soldiers, bodyguards and shock troopers within the Covenant Armada, until they became its leaders with the oubtreak of the Great Schism and the demotion and extermination orders against the sangheili. They initially started within a low status, but saw subtle rise through the First Contact War and eventually replacing the sangheili during the war's final months.

Lekgolo/Mgalekgolo
The lekgolo are a species able to combine into larger assemblages called mgalekgolo, also known as "Hunters" to humans. Incredibly tall, strong, and imposing, the mgalekgolo are clad with nearly impenetrable armor and assault cannon, they were the heaviest ground troops of the hegemony. Most mgalekgolo sided with the sangheili during the Great Schism.

Unggoy
The unggoy, also known as "Grunts" to humans, are a small species from Balaho. Methane breathers, they need to wear a large methane tank on their back to survive in the environment of non-methane filled planets. Unggoy had a fierce rivalry with the kig-yar, which were also one of the lowest ranking species alongside the yanme'e. Most unggoy sided with the sangheili during the Great Schism.

Kig-Yar
The kig-yar, also known as "Jackals", "Geckos", and "Skirmishers" to humans, are a species hailing from the moon of Eayn and the asteroid T'vao, who were the marksmen and scout of the Covenant Armada duo to their superior senses of sight, hearing and smell. They are incredibly diverse, even among the Covenant's species, having three subspecies: ruuhtians, ibie'shans, and t'vaoans. Most kig-yar sided with the jiralhanae and the san'shyuum during the Great Schism.

Yanme'e
The yanme'e, also known as "Drones" to humans, are a species of flying insectoids from Palamok, serving as cannon fodder much like the unggoy to overwhelm enemies, but also serving as ships engineers at the absence of huragok. Their flight capability was a formidable tactic against the UNSC, which had inexperience in fighting airbone infantry. Most yanme'e sided with the jiralhanae and the san'shyuum during the Great Schism.

Huragok
The huragok, also known as "Engineers" to humans, are an artificial biomechanical species created by the forerunners to maintain their technology. Impossible to understand by other species, they spoke in a sign language unintelligible by most aside from a few select san'shyuum. The huragok performed majority of the Covenant's labor and excavating missions. Alongside the san'shyuum, they were the only non-combatant species of the hegemony. Most huragok sided with the sangheili during Great Schism.

Military
The Covenant kept a pervasive armed force, known as the Covenant Armada, to enforce order, conduct space and atmospheric operations. Differently from the UEG's UNSC, the Covenant lacked a single unifying army, with the term "Armada" being passed down to the multiple organizations which comprised its forces. Most of the Covenant's military capability was embodied through its major fleets, which ranged from small battle groups to entire armies and fleets. Specific groups served under the fleets, which included occupational ground forces, such as the Silent Shadow and Fleet Guardians.

As the Covenant was deeply segregated duo to its species, the sangheili served in the military leadership caste, with unggoy, yanme'e and jiralhanae serving as expendable, but effective, cannon fodder and shock, mainline troops, while the kig-yar served as snipers and supports, mgalekgolo as heavy ground troops, and huragok as vehicle repairers and energy shield providers. Different weapons and technology were restricted by species, and then by rank: only kig-yar received point defense gauntlets, only sangheili received personal energy shields and the other species received basic weaponry and armor denoted by rank, although only jiralhanae used the weapons belonging to their species, such as gravity hammers. These restrictions were duo to cultural reasons and deeply inveigled racism, although changes occurred when the situation called, such as with the Unggoy Rebellion, which led the sangheili to allow unggoy in their units and give them military training. Similarly, with the outbreak of the Great Schism, the jiralhanae were given the command of the Covenant Armada, acquiring the post of their former sangheili leaders, who were deposed and ordered to be exterminated.

Technology
Covenant technology is noted by humans to be more imitative than inoperative, with most of them being either a mimicry or reverse engineering of salvaged forerunner artifacts and items they found through their expansion, including their perfect slipspace navigation, instantaneous interstellar communication, manipulation of plasma and gravity, as well as repulsor-based technology. Many of their achievements were based upon the digging of material in shield worlds found by the Covenant in the first centuries of its existence.

Despite its lack of innovation, the Covenant is incredibly apt at advancing the bridging gap in technology between the species it inducted into its rank. During the Battle of Shanxi, the Covenant was able to learn the functionality of human computer systems and English after hacking computer storage from destroyed ships, which was pivotal into the Covenant's understanding of the workings of human military operations, business, and technology, leading to the creation of the Cole Protocol. During the Fall of Reach, the Covenant covertly dismantled Reach's telecommunication network in order to prevent the planet from calling reinforcements, as well as the placement of dozens of spires to deploy massive forces without being detected.

Duo to the Covenant culture's religious taboos, they were prevented from fully reaching their full potential at exploring the intricacies of forerunner technology, something only the Hierarchs were considered holy enough to manipulate. This leads the Covenant to only imitate the underlying effects of the forerunner technology they reverse-engineer, while the hidden science remained unknown and impossible to understand, with a prime example being the hegemony's usage of plasma instead of hard light, which remained a complete mystery to the faction. The Covenant also never utilized AI and synthetics, which they call "machines", because of their religious doctrine, as they believed a powerful machine betrayed the forerunners to the xenomorphs during their ancient conflict, and that they should not be underestimated. The few AIs utilized by the Covenant were unintelligent, and used for minimum work, such as Sorrow, who served aboard the Ascendant Justice.

Despite their lack of knowledge over hard light, they were able to achieve some of it, such as the omni-tool of the Prelates, but it made up for their vast understanding and utilization of holograms, advanced enough to reproduce realistic and tangible simulacra of physical objects, including individuals, such as was the case of the holo-drones, which reproduce independent copies of its user that is capable of inflicting actual physical harm to enemies. They also used force-field technology in numerous capacities, such as to power the thrones of san'shyuum to contain beverages to the colossal energy barriers that protected High Charity.

Covenant architecture was curved, techno-organic, and sophisticated in style, based on designs of san'shyuum of old, as well as loosely sangheili architecture in design. Despite the san'shyuum's obvious influence in vehicles, many adopted sangheili aesthetics, primarly based on animals that inhabits Sanghelios and other sangheili colonies. Their architecture was mostly purple, although shades of blue and white could also be found, shared mutually by their buildings, weapons, vehicles, and weapons, with material unknown to the UNSC.

Medically, the Covenant was very advanced, with surgeries and treatments that extended the life of the san'shyuum, who live up to their 300s. Prelates also used biological augmentation and enhancements to fortify their frail bodies. Every battleship had special surgery suites which treated injuries and magnetic splints, which hold broken bones. Huragok also provided medical support during combat situations, alongside their primary engineering function.

Spacecraft
Interstellar travel was made easy to the Covenant species because of the hegemony's ability to reverse-engineer advanced technology they found. Ships that entered slipspace, much like those of humans, travel faster-than-light, but unlike humanity's slipspace drive, those employed by the Covenant were more efficient and powerful, able to perform accurate jumps to designated locations without suffering temporal fluidity. However, upon the jump's conclusion, Covenant ships experienced temporary power outages, making them vulnerable to enemy attacks.

Covenant ships used repulsor engines for propulsion in space, which were propelled through the mixture of gravity waves and reactive plasma displacements, although the factual means to do so remain unknown to human understanding. Many of the Covenant's ships and vehicles were equipped with anti-gravity technology, enabling them to hover an atmosphere and perform frictionless movement of vehicles through the ground. Many of the hegemony's manufacturing plants, such as the Assembly Forges, used sophisticated methods to allow freedom in a ship's design, allowing each commander to personalize their ships despite the uniform design they all sported.

Weaponry
Majority of the Covenant's weapons consisted of plasma-based directed-energy weaponry, but many designs also featured pulse lasers, particle beam weapons, antimatter explosives and crystal-based weaponry, defying the known laws of mechanics to human scientists, as their weapons feature neither radiative, electrical, or physical contact between the firing mechanism and the weapon's trigger. The plasma weaponry use rechargeable power cells, which provide power to the weapons' internal components, being effective, but crude in design and capability, with most of them overheating. However, most of the weapons possesses vents that allow them to open and discharge the excess of heat and plasma, and once the energy is depleted, it must be either recharged or discarded, meaning that the workings of a plasma weapon recharge remains unknown to the UNSC. The plasma pistol and the plasma rifle are the most well known plasma weapons, while plasma cannons, plasma torpedo and plasma mortars are the most commonly fielded in vehicles and strategic positions.

The Covenant utilized projectile weaponry, although to a lesser degree, with the most known of them being the needler and the needle rifle, using chemicals that form hard, razor-sharp crystals known as blamite, found on Suban, one of Sanghelios' moons. These crystals are fired at high speed, which allow the attacker to strike its target with deadly precision at long range. Needlers penetrate both flesh and armor, quickly exploding into thousands of sharp and tiny fragments that either maim or cripple its target. However, once a certain number of needles have struck the target, they detonated, killing the target instantly in an explosion.

After the introduction of the jiralhanae in the Covenant, their native weapons were brought with them and started being utilized, although mostly by themselves, with feature spike-like metal projectiles instead of plasma and crystals, akin to human bullets. They also used conventional explosives, incendiary grenades, sharp blades and hammers. Their weapons range from the Spiker, to the Mauler, and the Brute Shot.

In addition to their conventional weapons, the Covenant also utilized melee weaponry, which included the widely known energy sword, used exclusively by the sangheili, which is a ceremonial and ancestral tool used in their cultures for ages. The other is the gravity hammer, used exclusively by the jiralhanae, and much like how the energy sword is cultural to the sangheili, so is the gravity hammer to the jiralhanae, which generates a gravitational field that can maim a target to pieces in both close and long quarters.

Vehicles
Covenant vehicles used advanced anti-gravity technology for propulsion, being armed with directed-energy weapons of varying strength. Despite being faster compared to UNSC vehicles, the Covenant vehicles were far more unstable duo to the uneven terrains it needed to operate in, as all Covenant vehicles, except for those of jiralhanae origin, are made of much more advanced alloys than that of humans. The UNSC nicknamed all of the hegemony's vehicles based on supernatural entities in human history, such as ghosts, wraiths, spirits, seraphs, and banshees, among many others. Despite being more primitive, jiralhanae weapons were successfully incorporated into the Covenant, showcasing the design aesthetics valued by the jiralhanae (strength, brutality, and practicality), as opposed to that of the sangheili (strength, tenderness, and elegance). Unlike the other Covenant vehicles, jiralhanae vehicles are not named after supernatural entities, but to acts of brutality, such as chopping and prowling.

Sphere of influence
The Covenant's interstellar empire was mostly based in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, although they possessed outside domains, with its capital being the mobile High Charity. The Covenant encompassed thousands of star systems during its height, with a complex governance and set of politics; its size was so massive that planets and entire systems would disappear from the records at High Charity, only for contact to be re-established decades, or centuries later. The Covenant High Council was the responsible for organizing and administrating the hegemony's territories, including the allocation of resources to its thousands of worlds. Because san'shyuum were the ones to administer star systems, many were left in chaos and disarray after the disappearance of the few living san'shyuum who weren't killed by the xenomorph once it invaded High Charity.

The kig-yar, yanme'e, and lekgolo already had planetary colonies before being discovered and forced into the Covenant, which later became absorbed as part of the hegemony. As it expanded through the Orion Arm, the Covenant acquired more and more territory, with colonists being deployed both on planets and forerunner installations such as shield worlds. However, despite its enormous size and expansion, the Covenant left planets alone unless it held any religious value. Sangheili colonies, many of which were established before the formation of the Covenant, were deemed the most important worlds in the hegemony. After the incorporation of the unggoy and the jiralhanae on the Covenant, many started to live on resource-rich planets alongside the other species to guard them, although both species lacked the individual power to mine resources themselves.

Following the fall of the Covenant, and both the near extinction and disappearance of san'shyuum, most Covenant colonies fell in control of the multiple splinter factions, although others were taken by individuals without any affiliation, such as sangheili civilians and kig-yar pirates. Other planets became embroiled into civil war between various individuals and factions who wanted to take them to themselves. Joint Occupation Zones were established between the Swords of Sanghelios and the UEG in order to improve the tense post-war situation between sangheili and humans.

Trivia

 * Orion Arm art made by The Chronothaur.