Gryunjalla

The Gryunjalla, the name being the Jiralhanae word for 'Prospectors,' are an elusive alien race that once held a benevolent relationship with the Jiralhanae. Little is known about them, with not even their native name being recorded.

Because little is known about the Gryunjalla in spite of the tremendous influence they have had on galactic events, people are free to make up their own minds as to the Gryunjalla's motivations, and the resulting debate is often contentious. This is particularly true within Jiralhanae societies, where older generations were more inclined to see the Gryunjalla as well-meaning benefactors, while newer generations see the Gryunjalla's influence as manipulative and corrosive.

History
The Gryunjalla encountered the Jiralhanae after the First Immolation in the 1300s. They traded their ore freighters in exchange for the rights to mine the asteroids orbiting Doisac, and would later resettle Jiralhanae laborers on the planets they mined. They abandoned these worlds upon completion of the operation, leaving the Jiralhanae population to their own devices. To limit their expansion, and the numbers of translight vessels that could be called upon by warlords, the Gryunjalla never shared any knowledge on the workings of their slipspace drives, preventing the Jiralhanae from building their own.

The Gryunjalla would be successful in their efforts in curtailing Jiralhanae expansion, until contact with the Covenant was established during the Classical Spinward Migrations. The trade of older Covenant vessels broke the brutes' dependency on their benefactors, whose escalating raids eventually led to the Covenant-Jiralhanae War. Following the conquest of Doisac, a delegation would negotiate for the safe passage of a mobile colony through Covenant space. This would be the only known face-to-face interaction between the Covenant and the Gryunjalla.

At the end of the Human-Covenant War, Codename: BRICKLAYER speculated that the Gryunjalla conducted mass-abductions of humans living on stations in the Outer Colonies.