Golden Compact

The Golden Compact is a post-Covenant polity located in the Siakar Expanse, specifically the subdomain of Firmament's Apex. A member of the Concord of Reconciliation's Outer Vigil, it is a fairly tight-knit association of feudal lordships governed by a circle of kaidons native to Hur-Sanak and Hur-Utnai, known together as the Golden Worlds, a pair of fortress worlds that have historically served as the center of governance and military power in the Siakar Expanse. This formerly included the permanent presence of a San'Shyuum magistrate, the Archimandrite Nohk Romna, who also acted as the head of the Siakar Expanse's regional church. He was ousted from power relatively early on in the Great Schism, leaving the local kaidons and a handful of Yanme'e queens in power. The Golden Compact is fairly militarized and retains robust vestiges of the Covenant's caste system. However, the Compact lacks some of the Covenant's more draconian means of coercion, so the caste system is not quite as absolute as it may seem.

Their closest regional ally is the Chikri-Merkaa Conflux, though they do not always see eye to eye in all religious and political matters. As the Compact is effectively the largest remnant of the Covenant-era Siakar provincial authority, many of its leaders regard all of the Siakar Expanse as their territory and view emergent splinter polities with scorn. This led to rising tensions and nearly the outbreak of a regional civil war, though the most overt issues were resolved by negotiations initiated by the Concord's 2554 delegation to Siakar. Since then, the Compact has opted for less direct means of control over the allied Siakar polities, including encouraging military and/or economic reliance on the Compact. Border conflicts with belligerent polities within the Ikket'hai Cascade have since kept the Compact relatively occupied throughout the immediate post-war years. While the Golden Compact leadership's attitudes toward the UNSC are not universally amiable, their government also considers the Phoenix Initiative grudging ally - something that is also mandated by their Outer Vigil status.