Glossary

A

 * Aether: common Covenant name for wavespace, the layers of slipspace used for faster-than-light communication
 * Agora: the most common type of information network used by Covenant citizens; usually exclusive to city, station or world. Most Covenant civilian networks were also top-down in nature rather than interactive, with interactive networks usually being exclusive to guilds, governmental organizations or military units.
 * Archkaidon (also Arch-kaidon): a title used in some Sangheili planetary and regional regimes for a feudal lord in charge of multiple lesser states. Analogous titles, such as High Kaidon, Kaidon Paramount, as well as various unique titles are also used regionally, often with various differences in their responsibilities and level of power over their subordinate lords. Usually, such nobles hold authority on a level ranging from a planet to several star systems, albeit with considerable devolution of power to their vassals.

B

 * Blinker: a generic term for Covenant slipspace drives that trace their heritage to pre-Covenant Sangheili counterparts; also refers to early Sangheili FTL vessels. For details, see Covenant drive types.
 * Borer: Covenant slipspace drives derived from Forerunner technology, considerably more powerful than blinkers. Standard on most military and governmental vessels.

C

 * Chameleoflage: a blanket term for photoreactive, non-field-based active camouflage technologies developed by humanity.
 * CMC: the Chikri-Merkaa Conflux, a post-Covenant polity.
 * Concord: the Concord of Reconciliation, a league of several dozen post-Covenant groups championed by the Arbiter Thel 'Vadam; a kind of alien United Nations, and often just as effective at preventing conflict.
 * Crimson Realms: a collection of Sangheili core system states considered to be in the direct cultural and political sphere of Sanghelios.
 * Crimson League: an alliance of many noble houses from the Crimson Realms. Has fractured considerably in the wake of the Great Schism, though remains powerful enough to form the core of the Concord.

D

 * Dai'nos Yll: see Liturgical language
 * Diocese: a Covenant domain directly governed by a Lesser Prophet and other religious authorities, established at many key reliquaries or industrial centers producing entrusted technology to ensure compliance to High Charity.
 * Domain: a Covenant administrative unit. Primary domains were the largest kind, reporting directly to High Charity, while beneath them were numerous lesser domains, the most common type being Sangheili lordships and their vassals.

E

 * Entrusted technology: a class of Covenant technology understood and manufactured only by High Charity or industrial centers under the direct supervision of officials of the High Council or Ministries; includes key strategic technologies such as Borer slipspace drives, long-range wavecaster communicators, and most high-end types of weaponry and countermeasures. See also Sanctioned technology and Native technology.
 * Esoterica: the name given to Covenant-developed technology where knowledge on its underlying principles has been lost; however, the ability to construct them is retained, at least on an extremely-limited basis. Their adoption is extremely spotty, often only being used in specific design patterns of warships, stations, equipment, and vehicles.

F

 * First Saints: The 70 San'Shyuum and Sangheili individuals of note who laid the groundwork for the Covenant faith and the Writ of Union, reconciling the myriad differences between the San'Shyuum and Sangheili religions into a unified theological framework; perhaps the most revered historical figures in the Covenant.

G

 * Great Enemy (also the Enemy): Covenant theological concept representing, simply speaking, universal chaos, entropy and oblivion, the antithesis of the Great Journey. Most notoriously embodied by the Parasite and its many manifestations, though encompasses Mendicant Bias and other converted ancillas, internal strife, as well as wider moral and spiritual decline.
 * Great Spiral: Common Covenant name for the Milky Way Galaxy
 * Gryunjalla: an old Jiralhanae name for "Prospectors"; an elusive migratory civilization, elements of which supplied the Jiralhanae means for interstellar travel for a time in exchange for mining rights and labor; left the known regions of the Orion Arm centuries ago, though some suspect them to have kept an eye on the UNSC and possibly the Covenant up to this day.

H

 * Hades Gulf (also the Black Gulf): the region of space between the human and Covenant spheres in the Orion-side half of FLEETCOM Sector 1. Home to the crossing routes Pleiades Corridor and Stygian Ingress, as well as an increasing number of both human and post-Covenant colonies and activity in the post-war decades.
 * Halcyon Rift: Covenant designation for the Local Bubble, the relative cavity in the interstellar medium containing the human sphere.
 * Holy Ecumene: a common Covenant name for the Covenant's religio-cultural sphere of influence.

I

 * Ikjuttar: a secretive and isolationist fringe culture confined to their home system in the anti-spinward side of the Covenant Empire, they have evidently never been seen or interacted with in person. In their few transmissions to the Covenant, the Ikjuttar claimed their system to be home to a von Neumann threat of interstellar proportions, which their entire civilization had devoted themselves to containing. Despite them seemingly lacking a slipspace capability of their own, the Ikjuttar system was fortified with exotic defenses of such power as to stymie the Covenant's attempts at contact, assimilation or invasion, eventually leading to the Covenant simply leaving a listening post nearby and leaving the Ikjuttar to their own devices.

J

 * Jehioi: Sangheili word for "Wayfarers"; a pre-Covenant civilization that evidently established outposts within the Orion Arm approximately 40,000 years ago, all of which have long since been abandoned and reduced to ruins.

L

 * Lamesai Unesh Nok: A Covenant liturgical tongue term for the Enemy; see Great Enemy
 * Lekgoforming: a process engaged in by some Lekgolo meta-colonies in which a world is gradually shaped to fit that colony's preferences, typically involving extensive excavation processes. The process can take centuries or longer, and rarely truly stops.
 * Liturgical language (Dai'nos Yll): a Covenant language used in religious and high-level political contexts. Rich in nuance, depth and complexity, it traces its roots to the ceremonial language once spoken by the San'Shyuum Reformists, itself a bastardization of a Forerunner archival language.
 * Looters: a hypothesized, presumably migratory pre-Covenant civilization whose most notable act was to strip a considerable number of Forerunner reliquaries clean of usable technologies and data millennia before the rise of the Covenant; may actually have been more than one civilization.
 * Lostech: a term used by humans for some high-end technologies that are no longer possible or feasible to manufacture following the Human-Covenant War, due to the loss of the relevant infrastructure or expertise.

M

 * Magistrate: the chief San'Shyuum governor of a primary domain.

N

 * Native technology: technology originally developed by each client species, which (barring cases of forbidden technologies like AI) often remains in use well after that species' incorporation to the Covenant collective and may, in select rare cases, become adopted by the Covenant at large. However, most native industry is eventually drowned out as a byproduct of the assimilation process and replaced by Covenant mainstream technology.

O

 * Outer Vigil: signatory polities of the Concord of Reconciliation close to the Covenant periphery that engage in relatively close military and security cooperation with the core Concord. In some cases, the Concord's authority over Outer Vigil polities is more symbolic than anything.
 * Outliers: rogue societies that existed outside the Covenant's hierarchy, usually having escaped the hegemony's grasp by fleeing beyond the Covenant's peripheries. Outlier communities were rarely larger than a single planet and not often successful in the long term, most of them either falling to internecine conflict and/or being re-assimilated as the Covenant expanded.

P

 * Pleiades Corridor: the most widely trafficked slipspace route used to cross between the human and Covenant territories post-war, named as such for its proximity to the eponymous star cluster. Known to the Covenant as the Kelsac Passage after the Kelsac Periphery, its starting point within the Covenant sphere.

Q

 * Quarter: one of the divisions of space used by the Covenant, with the entirety of the Covenant Empire being split into four quarters.

R

 * Raan-Uchaal Bridge: the Covenant name for the Orion Arm; the Raan Spine and Uchaal Wing are the Sagittarius and Perseus Arms, respectively.
 * Relic-reader: a monastic class of archaeologists responsible for deciphering the purpose and nature of Forerunner relics or reliquaries, as well as interpreting Forerunner records. Most were in the employ of the Ministry of Etiology.

S

 * Sanctioned technology: Covenant technology that can be manufactured or repaired by the Holy Ecumene at large with the blessings of the Prophets. Includes most non-strategic technology; the majority of mundane technological appliances, Blinker slipspace drives, short-range FTL communicators, and so on. Most sanctioned technology originates in the realm of entrusted technology; how long it takes for entrusted technology to become sanctioned is decided entirely on a case-by-case basis.
 * Siakar: an avian creature native to Nesarok, one of the Sunlit Worlds; also the name of a constellation on that world, which inspired the naming of the Siakar Expanse.
 * Siakar Expanse: a Covenant primary domain notable for its proximity to the human sphere beyond the Pleiades Corridor crossing route.
 * Sliplane: a pathway between two points in normal space through the hyperspacial interstices of slipstream space; a slipspace route. The "higher" the "layer" of slipspace, the more efficient will the lane be in terms of speed, energy expenditure, and strain on the drive.
 * Slipwave: an EM-spectrum broadcast propagated through wavespace; used in reference to wavespace communications.
 * Solar Millenary: the 1000-LY-radius-bubble around Sol; arbitrary as a division of space outside its relevance to humanity in the post-war era, with human settlements being established further and further across this region
 * Sundering Years: a common name for the post-Covenant War decades, encapsulating the general trend of splintering among both post-Covenant and the human sphere.
 * Sunlit Worlds: the oldest and most powerful Sangheili (and by extension, Covenant) worlds, named as such for their relative proximity to Urs, whose light can still be seen with the naked eye from these worlds. The Sunlit Worlds are mighty indeed, and several of them are of an equal standing to Sanghelios as political and cultural centers.
 * Swords of Sanghelios: the de facto government in the Urs system, and one of the core polities that comprise both the Crimson League and the Concord.
 * Synod: the administrative council of a primary domain, consisting of local aristocracy, representatives of the Ministries, as well as the domain's Magistrate

T

 * Techary: a class of priest-mechanic within the Covenant capable of repairing or constructing entrusted technology within their fields of speciality.

W

 * Wavecaster: Covenant name for a wavespace transmitter, a device enabling faster-than-light communication.
 * Wavespace: Collective term for infinitesimal slipspace pathways optimal for the transmission of electromagnetic radiation, but unsuited for matter transit. Like normal slipspace, there are many (perhaps an infinite number) of "layers" to wavespace stacked atop one another, each more efficient than the last. Interface resolution, energy, and computing power are the main limitations to accessing higher layers. While humanity has had the theory of wavespace for centuries, communication through it only became viable on a mass scale in the mid-26th century with the capture of Covenant technology.
 * Wayfarers: See Jehioi.

X

 * Xar-Shaa: an aquatic species with a minor interstellar sphere of influence in the antispinward Sagittarius-side edges of the Orion Arm, partly overlapping with the Holy Ecumene proper. Part of the Covenant fringe. Slow, difficult to communicate with, and requiring cumbersome environment suits to operate in a normal atmosphere, their contribution to the Covenant largely involved handing over the few Forerunner artifacts they discovered, to which they exhibited a curious disinterest.

Y

 * Yonhet: a species of amphibious tripods native to the moon of Yonhe. Part of the Covenant fringe.

Z

 * Zenither: demonym for the Covenant hub world Radiant Zenith.