On September 3rd, 2524, a civilian freighter on route to the distant colony of Madrigal
disappeared and was presumed destroyed.
At first, this was thought to be the work of Insurrectionists, but in the following
days and months, United Nations Space Command would discover that this had been the act
of a formidable and technologically advanced alien power.
When the first contact protocols were enacted, the response was a single phrase.
“Your destruction is the will of the Gods, and we are their instrument”.
This was humanity’s formal introduction to the Covenant.
Within the first few months of what would become a truly cataclysmic war, it became
apparent that the Covenant were not a single race but rather an alliance of many different
alien species united under a single hegemonic culture.
Each species was in turn integrated into a tiered caste system, which, while ostensibly
divided between religious, warrior and worker castes seemed in practice to be divided along
racial lines with certain species regarded as superior to others.
The two ruling species of this hierarchy were the San'Shyuum and the Sangheili.
These were the founding members of the Covenant and the only races allowed to serve in the
highest echelon of its government, known as the High Council.
The Council included hundreds of representatives from both species, but the San'Shyuum’s
status as the representatives of the Covenant faith allowed them exert a disproportionate
amount of influence, in effect making them the Covenant’s ruling caste.
Accordingly, the three Hierarchs who presided over the High Council and served as the Covenant’s
supreme religious and political authority were appointed exclusively from the San'Shyuum.
Hierarchs typically achieved this position through political machinations, exercising
power behind the scenes and manipulating the council for their own benefit.
Officially however, the Hierarchs were said to have received the blessing of The Oracle,
an ancient artificial intelligence housed in a supremely powerful Dreadnaught, both
the relics of a long extinct Forerunner species and now worshipped as evidence of the divine
by the Covenant.
The appointment of new Hierarchs coincided with the beginning of a new Age, the method
by which the Covenant organized their history.
Each age was assigned one of seven titles corresponding to the prevailing themes of
the era; Abandonment, Conflict, Reconciliation, Discovery, Conversion, Doubt or Reclamation.
These ages did not necessarily follow any particular order nor were they equal in quantity.
As part of this ceremony, the Hierarchs themselves also selected a new regal name befitting of
their status such as “High Prophet of Truth”, “High Prophet of Tolerance”, or “High
Prophet of the Glorious Journey”, among many others.
While the Hierarchs and by extension the rest of the San'Shyuum race wielded almost complete
control over religious and political affairs, it was the Sangheili who served as the Covenant’s
military leaders.
Their martial skill made them the backbone of the armed forces for almost the entirety
of its existence and they were the only species permitted to build and operate warships within
the Covenant.
At its height, the Covenant fleet operated tens of thousands of warships each carrying
squadrons of fighters, auxiliary craft, and components of the Covenant Army.
These were split between several thousand fleets each consisting of roughly a hundred
warships, although larger armadas where known to exist.
Covenant strategy was based around their technological supremacy, in particular heavy plasma weaponry.
Standard doctrine upon encountering a hostile world was to bombard its surface from orbit,
a process known informally as glassing.
Glassing a planet typically left it uninhabitable with top soil, bodies of water and local ecology
all burned away or converted into lechatelierite, a mineral similar in appearance to glass,
which gave the process its name.
Such an act was considered holy by the Covenant and a Minor Prophet stationed aboard a participating
warship was required to conduct a specific ritual before the process could commence.
Upon completion, a shard of lechatelierite was retrieved and placed in the Sanctum of
Hierarchs which served as a morbid reminder of all the worlds destroyed at their command.
In some instances, such as when the presence of holy artifacts were detected on a hostile
world or other unique circumstances, orbital bombardment was forbidden.
In these cases, Covenant ships would operate within the planet’s atmosphere to increase
the accuracy of their weaponry and support the deployment of ground forces.
These consisted of not only the Sangheili but the remainder of the Covenant’s member
races, placed in everything from upper-leadership roles to cannon fodder depending on that species
place within the hierarchy.
Directly below the Sangheili were the Jiralhanae, a primitive but brutal species known for their
natural resilience and fierce temperament that made them effective warriors.
The newest species to enter into the Covenant, the Jiralhanae made impressive strides within
the hierarchy and this upstart race began to quickly rival the Sangheili, leading to
tensions between the two.
Other major species within the Covenant included the Lekgolo, small worm like creatures capable
of joining together in complex assemblages or incorporate themselves into machinery.
The Yanme'e, a flying insectoid race whose hive-minded nature allowed them to integrate
into specific roles within the Covenant with great efficiency and the Kig-Yar, an avian
species whose excellent eyesight and hearing made them natural marksmen and scouts.
The lowest racial caste within the Covenant was held by the Unggoy.
A primitive species when first encountered, they were quickly conquered and existed as
little more than a slave race, used to perform manual labor or to serve in unprotected frontal
assaults during wartime.
While the threat of force was enough to keep the Unggoy in servitude, it was the Covenant
religion that integrated the higher races into a cohesive empire.
This faith was based solely on the worship and reverence of an ancient Forerunner race.
It was believed these Forerunners had ascended into divinity through the activation of seven
great Sacred Rings.
The very fabric of the Covenant was built upon the pursuit of the activation of these
rings, so that the races of the Covenant might be propelled to the Divine Beyond and join
the Forerunners in godhood.
This was known as the Great Journey, a singular vision that manifested itself in every facet
of Covenant society.
The ultimate expression of the Great Journey and the Covenant faith was High Charity, an
enormous mobile planetoid that served as the capital of the Covenant.
This was a vast, holy city that every Covenant citizen was encouraged to make a pilgrimage
to at least once in their life, even if most could only hope to afford such a visit.
At its core lay the Forerunner Dreadnought, the heart of the Covenant and the impetus
for its very creation.
The dreadnaught was first uncovered on the homeworld of the San'Shyuum and precipitated
a religious civil war between Reformists, who sought to enter the ship and uncover its
secrets and Stoics, who decreed such an act to be blasphemous.
The war ended with the successful reactivation of the dreadnaught by a small contingent of
Reformists who abandoned their homeworld to seek out other Forerunner artifacts across
the galaxy.
Centuries later this journey brought them into conflict with the Sangheili, who like
the Stoics before, considered the study of Forerunner relics to be an unforgivable desecration.
With the Sangheili already in possession of a wealth of holy artifacts, conflict between
the two races was inevitable.
The war threatened the survival of both sides and in their desperation the Sangheili abandoned
their most sacred beliefs, reverse engineering Forerunner artifacts in the hopes of gaining
any advantage over the San'Shyuum.
It was the Forerunner dreadnought that proved to be the deciding factor however and one
that could not be overcome.
Eventually, a mutual respect formed between the two races and having come to regard the
San'Shyuum as worthy opponents, to whom surrender could be seen as honorable, the Sangheili
capitulated.
In time, the Sangheili were moved by the promise of the Great Journey and together with their
former enemies, they signed the Writ of Union.
An oath of service binding the Sangheili to the protection of the San'Shyuum who in turn
would guide both races forward towards ascension.
This new alliance quickly expanded across the galaxy, incorporating client races through
either the dream of the Great Journey or strength of arms.
This expansion was not always harmonious.
A series of brief but brutal rebellions were crushed by the Covenant military.
The greatest and final test the Covenant would endure was a war against humanity, whose very
existence was declared by the San'Shyuum to be an affront to the gods.
The Covenant embarked on a holy crusade of an unprecedented scale.
The United Nations Space Command fought tenaciously, but the technological superiority of the Covenant
fleet made most space-based engagements cruely one sided.
Only during planetary campaigns, with the Covenant’s most formidable advantages neutralized,
was the UNSC able to mount an effective defense.
Over twenty seven years the Covenant advanced into the heart of human territory, glassing
hundreds of human worlds in a frenzied, genocidal campaign.
Despite the UNSC’s tremendous losses, the war had placed a logistical burden on the
Covenant’s military and one that was increasingly difficult to maintain.
Mounting losses also spurred increased division within the Covenant itself.
Humanity had earned the respect of the Sangheili and many began to wonder why such a species
deserved extinction rather than be offered a place in the Covenant as so many had before.
In response, the San'Shyuum began to increasingly rely on the blindly obedient Jiralhanae which
only inflamed their long rivalry with the Sangheili.
When the UNSC successfully assassinated one of the Hierarchs, the Sangheili were declared
to have failed in their obligations as sworn in the Writ of Union and were officially replaced
within the Covenant’s military apparatus.
This unprecedented act was seen by the Sangheili as a violation of the Covenant’s core principals
and the situation soon escalated into a full scale civil war.
It was the discovery of the San'Shyuum’s greatest secret that truly broke the Covenant
however; the crusade against humanity had been built on a lie, one made to keep to the
Prophets in power.
Rather than defiling the ruins of the Forerunners, the highest echelons of the Covenant had learned
that humanity had some strange and direct connection with the Forerunners themselves.
This discovery proved it was possible to be left behind when the Great Journey occured,
a mortal blow to the Covenant’s faith.
Greater still was the revelation of the Seven Sacred Rings true purpose.
Rather then being the means of ascension, they were cosmically powerful weapons intended
to stop the spread of a highly virulent parasite known as the Flood.
When activated, the Rings would destroy all life in the galaxy, eliminating the Flood’s
supply of biomass.
The fighting between the Covenant and Humanity had already allowed the Flood to re-emerge
across the galaxy and High Charity itself was attacked and overrun.
This threat failed to sway the most fanatic elements of the Covenant and only an alliance
between the UNSC and Sangheili separatists prevented the activation of the rings while
simultaneously destroying the last of the Flood.
The war between the Jiralhanae and Sangheili, the death of the High Prophets and the exposure
of the lie that was the Great Journey marked the end of the Covenant.
The destruction of High Charity eliminated much of their leadership and the rise of various
splinter groups, collectively known as the Covenant Remnants, shattered what remained
of their empire.
Yet above all, it was the determination of the human race that not only broke the might
of the Covenant but saved the galaxy from extermination by the order of its corrupt
and deceptive Hierarchs.
During the final moments of the Covenant, when the Prophet of Truth stood on the precipice
of activating the Sacred Rings, he broadcasted a phrase that has lingered in infamy.
“There are those who said this day would never come.
What have they to say now?”
With his dream undone, the Covenant destroyed and the UNSC poised to dominate the galaxy,
these words have been given an entirely new meaning.
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