Siakar Expanse

The Siakar Expanse is a former Covenant ordinariate and astrographic region, located within the galactic spinward branch of the Arterial Network known as the Greater Spinward Frond, rising fairly far up north above the galactic plane. The Siakar Expanse is named after one of the traditional constellations of the Nesaroki cultural tradition; the siakar is a winged creature native to Nesarok and since transplanted to a number of other Covenant worlds.

Astrography
The Siakar Expanse is what the Covenant authorities called a primary domain, the largest regional administrative unit of the hegemony defined by their direct administrative relationship to High Charity. Like other such domains, it geographically covers tens of thousands of stars, though only several hundred systems are settled or even fully surveyed. By Covenant standards, it is fairly remote albeit not a complete backwater; the astrographic center of the Covenant Sphere being almost two thousand lightyears anti-spinward.

The Siakar Expanse is bordered by the Sea of Whispers spinward, Iabuze rimward, and the Jartuub Salient antispinward. Coreward, it terminates at the Kelsac Periphery and the largely uncharted Mennos Abyss. The Siakar Expanse lies to the north and coreward of the Orion Complex, but it is one of the closest domains to that nebular region and has been used to launch expeditions to the complex proper. These expeditions have brought prosperity to its hub worlds such as Radiant Zenith, the Golden Worlds and Prize of Piety. Several worlds of the Siakar Expanse itself also host evidence of past Forerunner occupation.

History
The Siakar Expanse's colonization began in earnest around 1,200 years ago, and though some colonies in the region date further back than that, they were not the result of concerted efforts on part of the Covenant administration (Glorious Proclamation being one such example). Most of the key population centers in the region were established during the subsequent three centuries of fairly intensive colonization, though many more have appeared since albeit at a slower pace. Concerted spinward expansion in the Siakar region slowed down nearly a millennium ago and since then, their hazy frontier, the buffer zone between what they regarded as 'civilized' and 'uncivilized' space, kept pushing outward only in small increments rather than the leaps made in the earlier centuries. This was for myriad reasons, thought partly due to the astrogation hazards and inefficient, knotted slipspace lanes they started to encounter in the region.

During the Long Discord and the Second Illumination, many worlds within the Siakar Expanse were devastated, irrevocably altering the region's balance of power.

Siakar's proximity to the Forerunner worlds of the Orion Complex brought wealth and fame to it, though by the later ages other routes had already been charted in other domains nearby that opened new avenues of exploration.

During the Human-Covenant War, the Covenant's ministries moved significant amounts of military materiel to the empire's spinward side, including the Siakar Expanse, to expedite their campaigns to the human sphere. While much of it has been lost either in the war itself or the resulting tumult, the many post-war factions who have taken possession of these vaults and depots now reap the benefits of that stockpiling.

Since the onset of the Great Schism, the Siakar Expanse's formal government has lost its hold over the entire domain, with only a rump state known as the Golden Compact controlling the core regions and exerting economic and military influence over various other polities. Both the Golden Compact and the other major powers of the region are part of the Concord of Reconciliation's Outer Vigil due to their strategic significance.

Due to its position neighboring the commercial Pleiades Corridor, the Siakar expanse was one of the first parts of the former Covenant Empire to experience direct non-military contact with the Human Sphere, and the first Covenant domain to be comprehensively charted by the UNSC.

Key locations
The Siakar Expanse's periphery on the galactic coreward-south side, home to various outlier and fringe elements and unaffiliated worlds.
 * Kelsac Periphery

A several-hundred-light-year buffer zone of mostly uninhabited space between the human and ex-Covenant spheres. The Gulf's status as a key crossing region was first discovered during the Covenant War based on AI-processed data on outlying Covenant colonies by means of siphoning Covenant data systems, deep-space probes, as well as outlying super-telescopes. At the time, it was flagged as one of two primary viable avenues for retaliatory strikes into Covenant territory (i.e. ones that did not rely on Covenant slipspace transit). In the post-war era, it has become one of the hotspots for new human colonies as well as Joint-Occupation Zone activity.
 * Hades Gulf

Loosely defined as the region of stars between and in vicinity of the Chikri and Merkaa systems, of which the latter is purely a historical inclusion as that system has not had any major significance for hundreds of years since the civil conflict known as the First Discordance at Siakar. The Merkaa system's primary world, Jai Shua, was once a key center of culture and military power to rival Radiant Zenith, but they had the misfortune of having picked the wrong side in the war - eventually leading to the world's utter ruination. Now only sand-blasted ruins of past glory remain, and not many set foot on the world as it is rumored to be haunted. Most of the Strand is currently under the control of the Chikri-Merkaa Conflux.
 * Chikri-Merkaa Strand

A collection of several hundred stars neighboring the Chikri-Merkaa Strand, Firmament's Apex has historically been a key seat of governmental and military power in the Siakar Expanse - something that has enabled the current Golden Compact to establish itself as one of the key players in the region.
 * Firmament's Apex

A molecular cloud home to several dozen colonies, staging areas and military depots, most of which were established by the Covenant during the war. While largely considered a remote backwater up until now, in the post-war era, the Jjaibii Shroud Nexus' consolidation of power in the spaceport known as the Rift, as well as the gradual opening up of trade to the human sphere, have made the area considerably more significant than before as a center of commerce. The Shroud's lack of well-established power structures, especially in the wake of the Great Schism, also made it easier for the Nexus to seize control of major infrastructure in the nebula.
 * Jjaibii Shroud

A grouping of stars that gets its name from a diffuse interstellar cloud, the Hark'azai Curtain was one of the Covenant's fleet attack routes during the war, alongside the Jjaibii Shroud. Considered a backwater by Covenant standards, it is an unstable region home to many small pirate bands and factions of variable repute. Despite this, access to the Gulfstream Route provided by the nearby Ouras Transit Node, as well as the secondary trade routes running to the Hezzaggor Verge make it moderately active.
 * Hark'azai Curtain

The Wastes get their name from the two dozen worlds there ravaged during and after the Great Schism. Now, they are politically unstable areas home to numerous unaffiliated worlds and unchecked pirate activity around shipping lanes, and the disruption of trade routes and the destruction of food production centers or supply convoys has led to enormous famines and the collapse of social order across entire worlds. Most recently, the Jjaibii Shroud Nexus has been making headway into pacifying several routes used by their trade convoys in the region, but it may be decades if not centuries before the region sees true stability.
 * Resrili-Lyhk Wastes and the Tirn Flux Zone

These regions are mixed in their makeup between several early colonies from prior to the early civil wars at Siakar, nearly a millennium ago, as well as more recent worlds colonized after many of the older worlds faded in their prominence due to the fallout of the conflicts and the redirection of trade routes. However, the area still houses many significant centers of trade, among them the Kig-Yar nestworld Cii'hith and the venerable colony of Jedrine, which, despite being long past its prime, still houses the major fringe trade port of the Kjuze Nexus.
 * Emerald Sea and the Koor-Zaan Stream

In the 11th Age of Discovery, seven warlords established lookouts around stars in this region to serve as a new line of fortress worlds to supply and secure the Covenant's further outward expansion. This never came to pass, however, with the devastation of the First Discordance at Siakar. Most of the seven systems fell to decline, never to regain their former glory. During the Human-Covenant War, however, the ancient fortress of the Sentinel of the Far Distance in the Odleett system was refitted and repurposed to serve the war effort; furthermore, the Serpent's Eye trade port, which had arisen in the system in the intervening centuries, has now become a bustling waystation for trade with the increasing activity along the Pleiades Corridor.
 * Vantage of the Seven

Over half a millennium ago, the explorer Mehar 'Telke led an expedition to this stellar group in hopes of charting a safe slipspace lane around the Kelsac Chasm, but his reach exceeded his grasp. He and his crew set out with great fanfare and celebration from the citadels of Jedrine, but nothing was heard from him since several cycles of reports. It was presumed that his ship was most likely lost in the vagaries of the Kelsac Chasm, the very anomaly he had attempted to circumnavigate. Other, more creative theories were offered as well- which, in turn, served as fodder for widespread spacer superstitions and rumors about the region.
 * Telke's Oblivion

This distant star cluster was so named because it long served as a safe haven for rogues who fled from the Jakuuro Sedition in the 19th Age of Doubt. Not all of the rebels were ever successfully hunted down by fleets of the Covenant, and it is suspected that their descendants still remain and may thrive in the shadows of those stars, or may have escaped yet further into unknown space. What is known, however, is that the region is now home to many micro-factions, though most of the few established worlds there are either independent or seemingly lawless. Either way, even the ex-Covenant know very little about the further-flung worlds there, and there have even been occasional unconfirmed sightings of strange species in the area.
 * Refuge of the Forsaken

Deriving it name from Kig-Yar folklore, it is a dense star cluster most notably colonized by Kig-Yar, Yanme'e and various other "lesser" species of the former Covenant relatively recently, with not all of the colonies there being entirely sanctioned by the relevant ministries. Now, it serves as one of the disparate centers of commerce and power for the Skarr Girdle, along with worlds even further out in the Qleshan Twilight.
 * Djahat Cyclone

During the 16th Age of Conflict, the worlds of this stellar cluster, under the protection of Regional Lord Ragheb 'Saan, sheltered many refugees outbound from the wars at Iabuze. However, the base world of Sundered Hearts, the cluster's main center of power, has lost much of its luster in the past centuries and many of its ancient monuments were devastated in the Great Schism. Despite this, it has managed to keep its status as an important waystation for travelers along Siakar's secondary trade routes.
 * Ragheb's Sanctum

A region of glassed or otherwise devastated worlds that marks old scars, dating back to conflicts hundreds of years ago. Now mostly pirates and low-lives call home those worlds and outposts that are still hospitable. However, the empty worlds - along with the hazard zone of the Broiling Deep - create a buffer zone between the Chikri-Merkaa Conflux and the more unstable systems of the Tirn Flux Zone.
 * Jaht Desolation

Named after an ancient Sangheili constellation, the Ikket'hai Cascade is an unstable collection of small polities - many of them on the sub-planetary scale - that exist in some semblance of a symbiotic relationship with one another, united by little more than a general hostility for their larger, better-connected neighbors. This hostility goes both ways, however, and said neighbors tend to perceive the Ikket'hai polities as a more or less a united front, which reinforces the technically inaccurate idea of the region's political homogeneity. However, the bonds of the local factions are weak and often severed as allegiances change, and the entire region is ever rife with conflict.
 * The Ikket'hai Cascade

Major factions
These are documented based on the region's political situation circa 2565. Many of the less established factions or smaller militant groups are difficult to place on a map as they tend to keep on the move. Even most of the borders of the larger groups shown are approximate at best, and may not be up to date with the present situation.


 * Concord of Reconciliation
 * Chikri-Merkaa Conflux
 * Golden Compact
 * Congregation of Refined Conviction
 * Jjaibii Shroud Nexus
 * Skarr Girdle
 * Yzen Bulwark
 * Keepers of the One Freedom
 * Sons of Heaven
 * Storm of Faith
 * Eternal Covenant
 * Third Severance
 * Conflagrant Host
 * Guardians of the Consecrated Chalice
 * Empyrean Dominion
 * Djyrn Ultimatum
 * Raruk Warpack
 * Divine Lights

Anomalies and hazards
Most of these hazards are slipspace anomalies, either naturally occurring or, more commonly, related to active Forerunner technology ranging from Line Installations to runaway Sentinel networks. The Covenant typically regarded such zones as sacred areas which mortals - no matter how pious - had been barred from entering by the Forerunners. More specific intel is available on the following:


 * The Kelsac Chasm is a relatively large "slow zone" which impedes normal slipspace travel. While such areas can be navigated, they tend to cause drive malfunctions and occasionally force ships out of slip at random. The use of a skilled navigator is nearly a requirement for a successful passage, and even then, most Covenant spacers avoid such zones. However, pirates and other fringe groups base their operations within secret routes in zones such as the Kelsac Chasm, making them notoriously difficult to hunt down by authorities unaware of said routes. It is presently unknown whether the Chasm is of natural or artificial origin, but its irregular nature suggests the former.


 * The Thesyma Knot is a slipspace "logjam zone" of unknown extent. Most of the local transit nodes or jump points open up into treacherous higher-dimensional angles, often trapping unwary spacers on loops or seemingly nonsensical vectors within the Knot; a skilled navigator is often required to guide a ship out of the region.


 * The Udnurthi Gap is an area of low stellar density that exhibits anomalous properties in the higher dimensions of slipspace. While not impassable, the Gap has a tendency of increasing strain on slipspace drives or heightening the temporal variance experienced by ships in-slip, causing most spacers to avoid it.


 * The Broiling Deep largely resembles the Udnurthi Gap in its properties and effects.


 * The Iirloht Vortex is a curious slow zone where the anomalous effects increase toward the center of the ring-shaped formation. This is suspected to be due to an active Forerunner installation of unknown nature, though no such installation has evidently been discovered in the area.


 * The Eye of Lyhk is a relatively small logjam zone similar in its properties to the Thesyma Knot.


 * The Sarsi Void, formerly known as the Sacred Void of Sarsi, is almost certainly a no-slip zone imposed by an active Line Installation. Any ships entering the area will be forced out of slipspace and destroyed.