Irshun League

The Irshun League was an economic, political and military coalition of Sangheili states that existed in the pre-Covenant and early Covenant eras. Spread throughout several of the Sunlit Worlds and later beyond, the Irshun League was known as the most socially dynamic and technologically experimental of the major Sangheili blocs at the time. While their numbers were fewer than those of the Crimson League or the Thar'shi Sphere, the Irshun League's warships were some of the most advanced thanks to their more liberal use of artificial intelligence technologies. Irshun also employed combat drones, or war-servitors, more extensively than the other factions.

While they had broadly agreed to their civilization's universal edicts against violating the sanctity of Forerunner relics, it was suspected by many that their scientists tampered with Forerunner technology in secret. This also made them the most receptive of the Sangheili factions to the San'Shyuum's offer of cooperation at the time of the War of Beginnings, with the Irshun League becoming the first large Sangheili organization to ally with the San'Shyuum.

Although the Irshun League's willingness to accept the alliance with the San'Shyuum won them some recognition in the early Covenant, it did not guarantee long-term stability. The League — never as strong ideologically or politically as its rivals — gradually disintegrated throughout the Covenant's High Antiquity. By the waning Ages of Late Antiquity, only a shell of it remained, its former members having formed new alliances.