Skyfall

The Skyfall was a cataclysmic Pre-Covenant disaster that befell the early Sangheili. Although its exact date is disputed even into the modern day, it is generally agreed to have occurred around the 2300s BCE, and brought an end to their first spacefaring age. It also had profound implications on Sangheili culture going forward.

Description
When the Sangheili first reached for the stars, the prevailing climate in the coalition of polities responsible was one of relative scientific enlightenment, a meta-culture that would be completely unrecognizable to us as anything resembling "Sangheili". The worship of the Forerunners prevailed in their cultural background, but it had in many places lapsed, and many saw it as outdated. Against the cautions of old priesthoods and to the abhorrence of more traditional rival states, relics were taken apart and studied. And in so doing, the Sangheili called upon themselves the wrath of the gods. No one really knows what happened exactly, for the details are lost in history and characteristically mythologized retellings thereof, but as a result of one particular experiment (possibly an attempt to tinker with a Forerunner AI core), Sanghelios' budding orbital infrastructure was wrecked along with most higher technology. Stations and orbital elevators came crashing down. Millions were killed. The Sangheili's path to the stars was postponed for several centuries.

Most legends and historians alike attribute the devastation to the incursions into an orbital artifact known among the early Sangheili as the Shard of Heaven, or Rhingun'oni ootu. This object, assumed to be a derelict Forerunner ship or station, had been a cultural curiosity to the Sangheili since the dawn of their species. From early on, the Sangheili could tell the object was no moon but an artificial structure, a belief confirmed as astronomy developed. Indeed, the independent development of Forerunner worship among many cultures on Sanghelios is partly attributed to the presence of the Shard of Heaven; not only did various planetside structures demonstrate the Forerunners' engineering prowess, but the enigmatic Shard of Heaven proved the ancient beings' mastery over the domain of the heavenly spheres. The Shard was also called the Heavenly Citadel (Rhingun'oni ngaara), and in the earliest religions centered on Forerunner worship, it was thought to be the place where the Gods physically watched over Sanghelios. These beliefs persisted in the public consciousness until the events that brought about the Skyfall. Although by that time, most had correctly concluded that the Shard was an automated station and the Forerunners were long gone, the old beliefs about its sanctity delayed any incursions into the facility for several decades. The Rhingun'oni ootu is assumed to have been destroyed in the Skyfall, its automated systems likely having self-destructed to prevent tampering by the curious Sangheili after triggering what appears to be a multimodal viral (and possibly physical) assault on surrounding orbital infrastructure.

The most prominent theory holds that the Shard of Heaven was a Forerunner facility designed to prevent orbital debris (and possibly the planet's close-orbiting moon, Suban) from falling down on the planet. With the destruction of the artifact, comets and ancient debris that had accumulated in Sanghelios' orbit fell down on the planet in the following days, weeks and years.

Aftermath
The Skyfall had a massive impact on Sangheili culture and society. It served as a sobering reminder of the Forerunners' power to an increasingly secularized world. It also burned in the Sangheili's collective psyche one unifying tenet: the Gods would not take kindly to tinkering with their machines. There would of course be dissidents who continued to experiment with Forerunner relics, but this was generally seen as heresy of the highest order, and none of the renegade tinkerers would enjoy the resources necessary to make any meaningful advancements. When the Sangheili did eventually reach spaceflight again, it was not the culture that had orchestrated the previous attempt, but another one that had previously fallen behind in technological development because of their more conservative treatment of relics; "We told you so" didn't even begin to cover it. Now, however, that divergent technological path turned in their favor as the previous masters of the skies came scuttling back and fell to unrest, regression and eventually obscurity.

The Sangheili effectively lost many higher technologies for a time, either due to the immediate effects of the Skyfall, or the consequent unrest and the cascading breakdown of production chains. The standard of living fell sharply throughout the planet over the next decades as the governments of Sanghelios struggled to maintain power in the chaos. Several large states collapsed entirely, giving way for a fractured patchwork of thousands of clan holdings. The areas that fared the best retained a Tier 6 technology level with basic industry, along with electrical appliances, simple propeller-driven aircraft, and firearms. Only the most rudimentary computers remained, and even they were in short supply. Nuclear fission power was likewise a lost technology for a time, leaving the Sangheili reliant on fossil fuels for several centuries.

During the centuries of interregnum, scientists attempted to preserve whatever could be preserved of the old world. There was considerable pushback against science from some groups, who claimed it was not only the meddling with Forerunner relics, but also the Sangheili's creation of advanced technology and space travel that had provoked the Gods' wrath. Pro-science forces eventually won out among the leadership of the major states, but the power of faith over society grew. Most notably, science became inextricably intertwined with religion. With the taboos on tinkering with Forerunner relics ingrained in every aspect of scientific education and practice, a return to the old ways became unthinkable in a few generations. Societies that had not meddled with Forerunner relics and had began to flourish and gain more ground while the old starfarers, now seen as decadent and corrupt, would fade to obscurity. Many of the budding interplanetary colonies of the Urs system died out without contact from the homeworld. The Sangheili would take another path to the stars, although slower than once thought. And the culture that did so would be altogether different, with only residual elements of the prior civilization that once reached up and fell.

While the rebound of religion after the Skyfall led to excesses of dogmatism at first, it was not ultimately an obstacle to progress. As time went on, the prevailing religious beliefs came to accommodate science and technology as laudable avenues to advance both one's own spiritual journey, and that of the entire civilization; to better understand the universe was to better understand the divine. Meanwhile, to tinker with Forerunner technology was not only to profane the sanctity of those who had passed beyond, but also seen as an unacceptable shortcut to progress that should be earned with one's own ingenuity and hard work. According to the doctrines of the early Sangheili, all civilizations should forge their own path to divinity just as the Forerunners once had. This was one of their most sacred principles, and one they did not surrender lightly come the Writ of Union.

The dark ages slowly came to an end as a budding arms race between various nations led to what would later be known as the Wars of Iron and Blood, wherein a new world order asserted itself throughout Sanghelios, eventually leading to the redevelopment of space travel.

The Age of Decadence
Since the the Skyfall, the Sangheili have come to call the former spacefaring era, or the later portion of it, the "Age of Decadence". Though various populations would continue to regard the period as a golden age even in the decades and centuries since the catastrophe, the Wars of Iron and Blood and the subsequent conquests of spaceborne populations led to the universalization of the concept of the prior age as a shameful one. Due to its widespread cultural demonization, accurate information on this age is difficult to come by. It is known with some certainty that, prior to the tinkering with the Shard of Heaven, there were attempts to recover malfunctioning Forerunner artifacts in Sanghelios' mantle, leading to a lesser catastrophe that managed to dissuade the species from extensive climate engineering efforts.

Supposedly, the Age of Decadence was a largely secularized period that saw the Sangheili engaged in myriad worldly vices, though some legends also tell of the Sangheili of the era partaking in rites most vile, even practicing sacrifice of fellow Sangheili to heathen gods. While such tales are likely exaggerated and seemingly in conflict with the intrinsically secular and pro-science attitudes that led to the Skyfall in the first place, they have often been cited as a major reason to shun the pre-Skyfall times. Similarly, when the Sangheili took to the stars again, their conquests of the Ursian populations, such as Sanghelios' moons and the Joorian worlds, have often been justified as civilizing missions seeking to convert and correct the ways of the final bastions of the Age of Decadence. The folklore of the conquered worlds tells a different story, and though a handful of those populations had descended to barbarism and many did still regard the "Age of Decadence" with fondness, their wicked nature has no doubt been exaggerated.

It is interesting to note that the cycle of a golden age ending with a drawn-out decline in which the people strayed from the path of virtue, only to be smitten down and for later generations to restore more honorable ways, is an enduring and ancient motif of Sangheili myth and legend dating back to the pre-Skyfall times. Although the events around the Skyfall are certainly historical, at least in a broad sense, the prevalence of such myths in the Sangheili cultural consciousness would certainly have influenced what meanings they read into those events; thus, what may have been a relative golden age of progress and enlightenment might be cast as one of decadence because the events corresponded to a well-recognized mythic archetype. No one really knows why the early Sangheili chose to tinker with the Shard of Heaven, and how representative those tinkerers were of the overall Sangheili culture; it is also possible they were a relatively small and radical sect, and the prevalence of "decadent" practices in the mainstream has become vastly inflated in the tale's many retellings over the millennia.

Though many remnants of the Age of Decadence have been swept away by time or intentionally demolished, some ruins of the era still remain. However, most ancient ruins on Sanghelios far predate the period, dating back to the times of the great empires of Sanghelios when their civilization had supposedly not yet lost their way.

Legacy
Remains of the Shard of Heaven can still be found on and around Sanghelios. A particularly large fragment landed near the coast in Sunaion, and a seastead city would later be built around the artifact as a pilgrimage site. Even as the Sangheili begrudgingly discarded their strict ban on tinkering with Forerunner relics during the War of Beginnings, remembrance of the Skyfall continued to be a cornerstone of the Sangheili's religious beliefs well into the Covenant's history as a potent reminder of the dangers of hubris.