Ages of Reclamation (Earth-5875)

The Ages of Reclamation were events within the Covenant where the search for the Halo rings began. The 9th Age of Reclamation was the final age in the Covenant's history, and where the empire fell apart with the Great Schism at its dawn, marked by the ascension of the Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret in 2513 and the brutal First Contact War in 2525.

Beginning
The 9th Age of Reclamation came with the ascension of the Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret in 2513 after their conspiration to achieve the position of Hierarchs.

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.