High Charity

High Charity was the Covenant's holy capital city and main base of operations. An enormous mobile city-station, High Charity was the primary center of political, economic and religious power within the Holy Ecumene for the majority of the Covenant's existence, housing the High Council and much of the bureaucracy of the Covenant government, including the ministries. This changed with the Great Schism, which saw the city-station plunged into a violent civil war, then assimilated by the Flood. In the end, the converted husk of High Charity was destroyed at the Ark in the final weeks of 2552.

Design and construction
High Charity's infrastructure is as old and byzantine as the many, many ministries that designed and renovated it. The station was riddled with voids that were on no blueprint, telecommunication cables that went nowhere and connected with no system, and entire streets whose original purpose has been long forgotten. These inclusions and dropstones were the subject of many a legend that survive to this day.

Even High Charity's exterior design is the result of various successive phases of expansion over the course of Covenant history. It began as a somewhat sleeker structure and has had a lot of elements added to it over time; for one, the dome was originally much smaller and was only expanded to its latest diameter through various stages to accommodate the city's growth over time. Much of the length of the Unbreakable Spine is probably original construction, but had much fewer docking structures around it at the start. Internally, large chunks of the city have been effectively rebuilt several times, though there are sections deep within that are original.

The same goes for tech. While select pieces of tech such as the engines are original, the Holy City has had just about every game-changing Forerunner discovery embedded to it over the ages; particularly relics too large for any other Covenant ship to transport. Many of the temples in the holy city are Forerunner structures transported there from worlds' surfaces or Forerunner installations in space.

Historical events also left their mark on the holy city. After the latest Unggoy Rebellion, devastated sections of High Charity were rebuilt so as to be less labyrinthine, with large streets easier for heavy vehicles such as Scarabs to traverse; for much of the Unggoy rebels' advantage had come from the maze-like environments of their quarters.

Construction
High Charity's origins laid in two San'Shyuum city-ships, the Consecrated Psalm and Holy Ground, the largest non-Forerunner starships of the Reformist's fleet. Built from the shards ripped from their homeworld centuries ago, both of these vessels were practically unarmed and protected only by a modest fleet that flew glorified police ships. Any attack from a determined Sangheili fleet could easily overwhelm them if their all-powerful Forerunner Keyship was not around, which could not be guaranteed to come to their defense. However, their huge power demands needed to fuel war forges, agricultural domes, and population comforts meant that any weapons fitted to them could not be used reliably, complicating plans for upgrades.

That was, until, a shipwright known as the Solemn Architect became involved in 897 BCE. He proposed permanently connecting the two ships together, where the combined output of their reactors would allow the installation of heavy weapons and shielding. The space between them could be closed up to house much more extensive factories, training arenas for their soldiers and pilots, and a reactor of immense proportions. A breathtaking structural spine would hold them together, and Forerunner engines would be brought in to provide the speed. Such detailed concepts were initially dismissed as radical, completely unfeasible, and time-consuming to implement, but with all other options either unsuccessful or lacking the development needed to implement them, it was eventually accepted. These plans would, in effect, create the first foundations for what would later be called High Charity. Albeit, the assembly of asteroids and otherwise-spindlier structure would be a far cry from the beauty of its final form.

The Architect never saw the completion of his brainchild, as he was killed after he was captured by a Zealot team. However, his plans were developed further throughout the conflict closer towards a weapon, as San'Shyuum generals realized the value it could provide as a source for supplies and replacement vehicles during long sieges. While the Keyship remained by far the single-most powerful weapon of the conflict, the combined Consecrated Psalm-Holy Ground platform was championed for its logistical prowess. For the first time in the war, Sangheili colonies could no longer simply wait out a Reformist invasion, and one by one, their worlds would begin to fall. While the War would persist for decades more, it slowly became evident that the San'Shyuum would win any sustained conflict by simply being able to whittle down their enemy until they surrendered.

After its completion, High Charity became the main driver of major colonization efforts with its faster drive and massive internal resources.

The Silent Passengers
One of the more persistent myths within High Charity were of the Silent Passengers. So go the rumors, when High Charity spent five years over Zhoist, a cabal of disembodied Oracles made a pact with a foolhardy San'Shyuum. If this Junior Minister, whose name has been lost to the ages, were to make some alterations to the communication infrastructure, they would reward him well. He did so, and they explained to him the location of a minor data archive under the Third City.

So this went on for another year, with each small favor rewarded with a little nugget of knowledge that would raise the Junior Minister’s stature, until he trapped one of the Oracles in a black box. No longer content to bargain for each morsel of information, he planned to extract the Oracle’s memories to peruse at his leisure. In retaliation, the cabal revealed the Minister in public to be a lecher and an embezzler. He was tried and executed, and the cabal was free to infiltrate High Charity. They became the Silent Passengers. For ages they rode the station through the Holy Ecumene, influencing its affairs in ways too subtle to detect.

Officially, the Silent Passengers didn't exist. If they did, then all of the ministries would mobilize to hunt them down and contain them, for there is no knowing where their loyalties lie. But tales abound of the fools who have struck deals with them, and the poor souls who have unexpectedly received their help. Indeed, even though the ecclesiarchy did their best to tamp out worship of the Silent Passengers, there were many shrines raised to those disembodied Oracles, and many denizens of High Charity would cry out loud for their help in times of trouble.