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 Covenant created its own connotation of time, known as Ages, which consist of seven, each representing the theme that occurred during them.

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 orokin technology, something only the Hierarchs were considered holy enough to manipulate. This leads the Covenant to only imitate the underlying effects of the orokin 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 androids because of their religious doctrine, as they believed a powerful machine betrayed the orokin 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 weponry, 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.