San'Shyuum (Earth-5875)

"Who would doubt the san'shyuum? Had not everything we told come into fruition?"

- - Prophet of Truth

The san'shyuum (Latin Perfidia vermis, meaning "worms of treachery"), known by humans as Prophets, are a near-extinct sapient species from Janjur Qom, a planet that has been lost in all records. One of the two founding species of the Covenant, alongside the sangheili, the san'shyuum served as the effective political leaders of the hegemony in leadership positions as Hierarchs, ministers, and politicians. With their early civilization thriving on a world filled with forerunners, the san'shyuum came to revere the ancient species as gods, and entered in a long, bloody feud between the Reformists and the Stoics. The Reformists were the victors, and they were able to take the Dreadnought, a Keyship that survived on their planet, and use it to explore the galaxy.

Following the fall of High Charity by the flood, which killed majority of the san'shyuum population, less than a thousand are known to still exist.