Covenant

"So full of hate were our eyes, that none of us could see / Our war would yield countless dead, but never victory / So let us cast arms aside, and like discard our wrath / Thou, in faith, will keep us safe, whilst we find the Path."

- The first and most often cited stanza of the Covenant's Writ of Union, translated into Standard English verse.

The Covenant, or the Covenant Empire, was a religious multi-species hegemony and the predominant power in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy for approximately 3,400 years. Born out of the Writ of Union, a pact between the San'Shyuum and the Sangheili that ended a devastating religious war between the two species, the Covenant expanded over the following millennia to incorporate six other major species: the Lekgolo, Unggoy, Huragok, Yanme'e, Kig-Yar, and the Jiralhanae, along with several others in a tributary or fringe status.

The Covenant was built around a religion that deified the long-vanished Forerunners and the technological relics they had left behind. The ultimate goal of the hegemony was to discover and use these relics, most prominently the "Sacred Rings" of the Halo Array, to follow in the Forerunners' footsteps and ascend into godhood in a process known as the Great Journey. This was seen as not only a manner of afterlife, but also a way for the overall Covenant meta-civilization to escape the inevitable end of the universe. This religion permeated every aspect of Covenant society, and was most prominently used to enforce a rigid system of techno-feudalism in which religious, political and technocratic power were inextricably linked and, on the highest level, largely at the hands of the San'Shyuum Prophets.

However monolithic it may have appeared at first glance, the Covenant was notoriously complex, encompassing numerous disparate political, religious and military organizations. While diverse in their methods and at times contentious between one another, all these organizations were united in their pursuit of the Great Journey, and all ultimately answered to the High Council and the Hierarchs. Governed from the worldship High Charity, the Covenant's holy city, the Covenant's dominion encompassed thousands of worlds. Rather than inhabiting planets, sizable portions of the empire were also mobile, making their home on starships or mobile habitats; these segments of the population were known as Peripates.

Following a disastrous first contact at the human colony world of Harvest in 2525 sparked by the then-nascent Hierarch triumvirate perceiving the new species as a threat to the Covenant religion and their own power, the Covenant began a war of extermination against humanity. Although the Covenant vastly surpassed their enemies numerically and technologically, the unexpected prolongation of the war also drove the Covenant's central government into a death spiral, exacerbating various socio-political tensions and divisions to the breaking point. This culminated in the Great Schism, in which the Hierarchs ruled to remove the Sangheili as the Covenant's primary military caste, and elevate the Jiralhanae in their stead. Coinciding with other momentous events such as the discovery of two Halo rings and the release of the Flood, this not only drove much of the Covenant into a violent civil war but also saw the shattering of its religious unity, eradicating the ironclad legitimacy of its Prophet rulers which had held the hegemony together for millennia. What began as a conflict between the broadly-defined Schismatic and Loyalist factions quickly devolved into one between numerous groups and movements.

Whether the Covenant continues to exist is a complicated question, and the answer depends on who you ask. Many factions claim succession to the Covenant, some with more legitimacy than others, though a common view is that many of these factions are merely parts of a now-fragmented but still-extant Covenant collective. Groups such as the Concord of Reconciliation and the True Communion can variously be assumed to exist as replacements for the Covenant, or organizations operating within the Covenant umbrella. Indeed, the notion of the Covenant not existing is quite inconceivable to most of those living in the Holy Ecumene. Even with the knowledge that High Charity and much of the central Hierarchy has fallen, it is a common assumption that these institutions will be reformed or replaced in some form. As the religious, political and economic disruption created by High Charity's fall continue to resonate across the Holy Ecumene, their impact on the Covenant citizenry varies. Some domains have been splintered and ravaged by war, while others have been able to maintain their social and political institutions; in some cases, day-to-day life for the average citizen has not even substantially changed.

Structure and governance
The Covenant was governed by a triumvirate of ecclesiastic officials known as the Hierarchs, who served as the heads of the High Council. The Covenant's many ministries were responsible for the implementation of the High Council's edicts, but in practice, many of them had agendas of their own.

The Covenant Empire encompassed hundreds of discrete states that ultimately answered to High Charity's ecclesiastic hierarchy. On the high level, these states shared a basic religio-political framework to facilitate their central administration. The highest level of regional partition was known as a domain, which in turn encompassed several local states on the interstellar, star system, and planetary scales. The domains were officially-recognized ecclesiastic units whose governmental structures largely followed similar lines, but the sub-domains were more eclectic.

While this arrangement was the standard in the later ages of Covenant history, it only came about in response to great reforms instituted during the Second Illumination. During the preceding Feudal Period, regional governments were far less standardized, especially near the Covenant's marches, and High Charity was forced to deal with hundreds if not thousands of disparate governing apparatuses. This arrangement, in turn, was preceded by a system of religious and military provinces translated as themes in Late Antiquity following the First Illumination. In the early eras of Covenant history, High Charity dealt with regional polities directly, as their numbers did not initially pose insurmountable administrative challenges. This changed over time, giving rise to the Covenant's first interregnum which in some ways mirrored the later Feudal Period.

Caste system
Listed here are, in descending order of prestige, the Covenant's broad occupational categories which existed in a complex hierarchical framework. Below these high-level categories existed numerous specific roles and duties, and exceptions occurred more often than might be readily apparent.


 * High Ecclesiastics: The highest positions attainable within the Covenant. Hierarchs, Lesser Prophets, High Councilors, etc.
 * Ordinaries: Members of the religious hierarchy, from clerics and staffers to magistrates, bishops and ministers. In practice, the vast majority of San'Shyuum are considered to occupy this tier, even if they are not members of the clergy. As such, there is considerable variance within the tier.
 * Aristocrats: Secular aristocracy (mainly Sangheili with some San'Shyuum titles); many enjoyed as much power and status as many Ordinary offices. Coincides with military and political leadership positions.
 * Warriors: Various tiers of lesser Sangheili nobility. Some noble ranks toe the line between these and aristocrats.
 * Artisans: Respected trades of "sub-creators"; Architects, crafters, pattern-weavers, artists (notably, not all crafts are regarded as "artisanal")
 * Ennobled: Lesser-species individuals entrusted with special technological, religious or political roles or responsibilities, e.g. various Deacon ranks
 * Freeholders and Merchants: A loose and hard-to-categorize grouping that has fluctuated in influence depending on the time or individual(s) in question. Material wealth does not always correlate with social, political or especially religious power.
 * Fighters: Most lesser-species combatants. Due to the technicalities of Sangheili meritocracy, low-ranked Sangheili combat roles also occupy this tier, though most are quickly promoted to higher ranks.
 * Servants: Higher servile roles; usually regarded as more pleasant than manual labor. The difference between these and Menials in terms of treatment and social perception may be at times vague and largely depends on local cultural attitudes and politics.
 * Menials: Common manual laborers who enjoyed more rights than thralls
 * Thralls: Slaves or serfs who were legally bound to their commander, lord, or organization.

Military
Like the hegemony's most other functions, the Covenant's military forces were not a single organization, being instead spread out across a number of ministries. The UNSC initially likened these to military branches, though this comparison fails to capture the level of autonomy enjoyed by each ministry, or the sheer redundancy in military capacity between ministries. Likewise, the divide between 'military' and 'civilian' elements of the Covenant was not as straightforward as humans tend to understand. Most of the ministries had functions outside warfare, and Covenant fleets frequently fulfilled other duties such as commerce and transport in peacetime. Law enforcement occupied a similar gray area, though dedicated civil and military law enforcers also existed.

Though formally mandated by the High Council, cooperation between the ministries was not always straightforward. Though some ministries were more open to joint operations than others, inter-ministerial competition and rivalries were ubiquitous, especially between ministries with significantly overlapping roles. Some ministries formed cliques working against other cliques, with often actively hindered efforts at cooperation. While this infighting rendered the Covenant bureaucracy highly inefficient, it did help maintain a certain balance of power, being mostly successful at preventing any one ministry from becoming too powerful.

Though nearly all of the ministries maintained some military capability or security division, the most prominent martial ministries to maintain fleets and hosts as of the Covenant's recent ages were:


 * Ministry of Conversion — Handled the assimilation of new species, which often involved the application of military power.
 * Ministry of Fervent Intercession — Oversight of the Zealots, though mostly handled special missions in the later ages.
 * Ministry of Resolution — Originally an anti-piracy force, the Ministry of Resolution would come to amass the largest fleet of all ministries by the Human-Covenant War.
 * Ministry of Preparation — Internal security and special projects; did not field large fleets.
 * Ministry of Preservation — Dealing with internal dissent; formerly the largest martial ministry, having grown considerably during the Second Illumination.
 * Ministry of Vigilance — Espionage and other covert activities; effectively functioned as a secret police. Recently grew considerably due to the Prophet of Truth's patronage.

Not all forces overseen by the ministries were directly under the ministerial hierarchy, or were only notionally part of their parent ministry. While military materiel (ships, weapons, etc.) was owned by the ministry, the relationship between military and individual property was not as straightforward as in modern human standing militaries such as the UNSC. The Covenant system has closer parallels to feudalism, as a Shipmaster, for example, has a tenure to his ship and certain responsibilities over its maintenance. The exact responsibilities a warrior aristocrat's feudal tenure covers have fluctuated with time, and the reforms of the Second Illumination in particular made the nobility far more tied to the ministries, from which it had drifted during the Feudal Period.

Consequently, the prominence of ministerial standardized military forces with standardized gear is actually fairly recent in the Covenant. Up until the early ages of the Consolidation Era (c. 1800- ) most Covenant military forces came directly from the armed forces of Sangheili noble houses or regional states, all of which used their own gear, organization and traditions. Though these houses formally answered to the ministries, in practice they became independent polities, particularly at the Holy Ecumene's marches. Retinue-based house armies continue to exist but have either lost much of their original prominence and importance to the formally-organized ministerial forces, or been organizationally integrated into the ministries. Even so, senior Sangheili warriors typically wear bespoke armor (as opposed to switching out armor sets as they rank up, for example, they add regalia to their existing harness). In addition, regional forces with unique equipment and organization are still called upon from time to time. For example, the Refum clan from Malurok was noted for their unique gear inspired by their alliances with local Yanme'e hives.

Martial organizations also existed outside the ministries. The Honor Guard answered directly to the High Council, or specifically the Hierarchs. The Honor Guard as an organization originated as the closest thing the Covenant once had to a singular military, in the hegemony's antiquity, only for them to be relegated into a mostly ceremonial outfit over time.