Combined Fleet of Virtuous Ascendancy

The Covenant fringe is a name given to the large grouping of species, entities and civilisations known to the Covenant and considered under its holdings, though for various reasons are not inducted into the hegemony as proper client species. While applied fairly commonly, the reasons a species or civilisation may be considered fringe are varied and oftentimes inconsistent. In some cases, whole species are considered fringe despite being fairly well integrated into Covenant society, while other labelled-fringe elements may include more distant Covenant splinter civilisations (be it in distance or culturally) still formally within the Covenant, though in the hazy delineation between "Covenant" and "Not-Covenant".

In the Covenant's later years, the fringe definition was most commonly applied to species which had yet to be brought into the fold of the Covenant; in many cases, this reason may be as simple as the necessary bureaucratic apparatus having yet to finish shifting to accommodate the introduction (and subsequent upheaval) caused by inducting an entirely new civilisation into the hegemony. The outbreak of the Human-Covenant War saw much of the fringe remain static, as efforts were reshifted into evaluating the human threat. In general, peer civilisations (that is, civilisations of a power, opposition or distance enough to not be considered a part of the Covenant's holdings) are not considered Covenant fringe, though in some cases (such as the Cix-Tu) there is a grey area. As such, groups such as the Gryunjalla and Waquish'Dawn are not part of the fringe.

With the splintering of the Covenant and the collapse of its rigidly enforced caste system, the term "Covenant fringe" has ceased to have the distinctive meaning it once held, and has since largely fallen out of use. Many of the species considered within the fringe have little in the way of population, resources or technology (or any combination thereof) when compared to more established Covenant and thus their worlds are particularly vulnerable to the conquests of the post-Covenant warlords.

Species

 * Cix-Tu - At one time, the Cix-Tu were considered a target for imminent induction into the Covenant for humanitarian reasons; toppling the Imperial government that controlled the Cix-Tu empire. However, the outbreak of war in the Solis Nexus and then with the Jiralhanae saw this mission put on the backburner, and eventually forgotten within the machine of Covenant politics. The Cix-Tu are now considered a tentative fringe element.
 * Ikjuttar - A fringe civilisation on the trailing end of Covenant space, the unique circumstances of their civilisation has left the Covenant mostly content to keep an eye on them, with the Covenant largely suppressing knowledge of their existence internally. Officially, their conversion was considered "ongoing".
 * Jiralhanae - When initially encountered, the Jiralhanae were considered little more than a fringe civilisation on the edge of the Covenant periphery. A millennia of integration, war and trade eventually saw them formally adopted as a client species.
 * Sharquoi - A protosapient species employed on some Covenant worlds for labour. While above fauna, the Sharquoi's limited intellect is generally considered too low to be capable of comprehending the Covenant religion, and thus ineligible for client status within the Covenant.
 * Xar-Shaa - An aquatic civilisation known to the Covenant. Their lack of utility and extremely Enigmatic nature left them not noteworthy enough to consider for the Doctrine of Universal Conversion.
 * Yonhet -

Groups
In some cases, certain splinter groups of the Covenant were considered a part of the Covenant's fringe. These elements are typically those located a great physical distance from the core centres of Covenant space, such as the most remote outlying colonies. In some cases, particularly divergent realms have been described as fringe entities - typically those culturally removed from the greater Covenant whole and in danger of seceding entirely. These realms did not last long within the Covenant, with High Charity exerting its influence over these disloyal subjects to bring them back into line.

The groups known as Peripates often display some overlap with Covenant fringe entities, with many of these migrant colonies and worldships situated on travelling asteroids or large spacecraft having little to do with the major wider affairs of the Covenant. These elements are not confined to the outer periphery of Covenant space, often traversing the core regions of their home systems and surrounding stellar neighbourhoods. Some of the more isolated Kig-Yar asteroid colonies and sub-species are similarly grouped in with fringe, alongside select Lekgolo and Yanme'e swarm/ hiveworlds.