Reformists (Earth-5875)

The Reformists were a group of san'shyuum who fought against the Stoics during the War of Wills and later the sangheili during the War of Beginnings. Consisting mostly of scientists and geniuses, they sought to study and manipulate the Dreadnought to further advance their species.

History
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, where the Reformists to acquire control of the Dreadnought, an ancient forerunner relic that crashed on the Great Apothtea. The Reformists, with their superior technology, were victorious in the end, and took control of the Dreadnought to escape from Janjur Qom, removing a chunk of the surface beneath it that later became the foundation to High Charity, the holy capital of the Covenant. 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.

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. While the sangheili served as warriors for the Covenant, the san'shyuum served as its religious and political leaders, effectively rising to control an interstellar empire encompassing thousands of worlds and trillions of individuals.