Sunlit Worlds

The Sunlit Worlds are the Covenant's very oldest worlds, often regarded as the astrographic nucleus of the Covenant Empire. Located at the heart of the Primeval Core, from which the Covenant's vast Arterial Network radiates in all directions, the Sunlit Worlds are conventionally defined as ones from which the Urs system can be seen with the naked eye (though not all of the systems regarded as being among their number strictly fulfill this criteria). Originally colonized roughly between 4000 and 3500 years ago, they also roughly correspond to the extent of Sangheili civilization at the time of the War of Beginnings. As such, the term is sometimes used synonymously with the pre-Covenant Sangheili sphere, though many of the Sunlit Worlds were settled after the alliance's formation. The Sunlit Worlds encompass close to two thousand settled systems, with several dozen being commonly distinguished among the most renowned and powerful worlds of the Covenant.

Generally speaking, the Sunlit Worlds are wealthy and rich in political, cultural, and martial power. The hubs of the region are mighty sights to behold indeed; filled with great mega-engineering, worlds girdled by glittering orbital bands and sky-fortresses, vast mega-cities, floating towers and great city-towers and suspensor platforms stretching to low orbit. Most of these worlds maintain dozens of off-world holdings, and combined with their highly-settled and industrialized home systems, have populations in the tens of billions. A few dozen of the Sunlit Worlds are even capable of directly rivaling Sanghelios in economic and political power, though their relative strength has fluctuated greatly across the ages. However, it should be noted that not all of the Sunlit Worlds are quite as well-off; over the span of millennia, some worlds of former prestige and glory have faded into obscurity for various reasons, either due to the natural drift of slipspace lanes or the devastation of wars long past. There are places that are but a shadow of their former glory, as the focal points of civilization moved elsewhere or concentrated on other worlds, and once gleaming centers of civilization reduced to wastelands and ruins. Even so, several hundred of the old systems remain as thriving centers of civilization, even following the onset of the Great Schism.

Politically, the Sunlit Worlds are generally regarded as conservative and proud. Over a half of the worlds align themselves with the Crimson League, which ties them to Sanghelios' political and cultural sphere. Yet many others have historical feuds or splits with Sanghelios, and maintain regional empires of their own. Some of these differences go as far back as the Sangheili's earliest starfaring days and the first migrant clans departed the Urs system aboard great blinkerships. Many of these early colonies had no consistent contact with the greater Sangheili civilization, and some were only brought into the Covenant decades or centuries after the Writ of Union. While the vast majority were effectively absorbed into the Covenant's mainline culture over time and virtually forgot their ancient past, a number retained their ancestral pride over their independent origins and never saw eye-to-eye with Sanghelios and its affiliates, even as those worlds' cultural hegemony dominated much of the Primeval Nucleus.