Crimson League

The Crimson League is a political and economic bloc containing half of the Sunlit Worlds. It is a core member of the Concord of Reconciliation. Although once but one of Sanghelios' principal powers, the Crimson League has become known in the last millennia as the immediate political sphere of influence of Sanghelios itself. The League's name comes from the traditional color associated with several prominent Sanghelios houses and states and recurs throughout Crimson League iconography in various forms. The member states of the Crimson League are often called the Crimson Realms.

History
Like several long-lived Sangheili institutions, the Crimson League has not existed as a continuous organization since its earliest incarnations thousands of years ago. It has unraveled and been reformed several times throughout the course of history, each incarnation having a slightly different role and composition.

Origins
The Crimson League was founded shortly before the War of Many Banners, as a defensive pact between several polities on Sanghelios, within Urs system, and throughout the Sunlit Worlds. In the League's own histories, this was to provide a bulwark against the rampant expansionism of the Thar'shi Sphere, which would emerge as the Crimson League's most long-term rival. Ironically, they would find themselves fighting a common enemy with the appearance of the San'Shyuum and the War of Beginnings. The war saw the Crimson League, the Thar'shi Sphere, and several other Sangheili polities forming a common front — the so-called Righteous Host — and normalized political dialog, which persisted into the Sangheili's governing structure in the early Covenant.

Although the Crimson League is now associated with the Swords of Sanghelios and the homeworld overall, this was not always so. Although some of the states and clans that had Swords of Sanghelios members in earlier eras (prominently the Principality of Yermo and the Orami Dominions) would be founding states in the Crimson League, the Swords were always seen as a pan-Sanghelios effort rather than on exclusive to select polities.

The name was chosen for the Crimson Banner, identified with several historical alliances emerging from the meta-culture of the states that first formed the League. Although crimson would later be associated with Sanghelios as a whole, a cohesive Sanghelian identity had yet to take shape by the time of the League's formation.

Under the Covenant
With the advent of the Covenant and its ministries, the mission of the League shifted. Due to this shift, a number of members divorced from it, forming their own factions. The early Covenant's governance was far more hands-off than in the later ages of the Consolidation Period, leaving the Crimson League and other Sangheili polities with considerable responsibility over their own governance up until the reforms of the First Illumination.

The Great Schism
The Great Schism saw the Crimson League retaining most of its historic members, although it became less significant as a political forum through the advent of the similarly-organized Concord of Reconciliation. Internal disagreements would persist in the League throughout the years of the Schism, even as the continuing war against the Loyalists kept them largely unified.

Tribulations and Blooding Years
As the years went by and treaties with the Jiralhanae mitigated the enduring Loyalist threat, the political and theological disagreements among Crimson League worlds widened into rifts for some members, and several member polities would go so far as to resign in protest. On the other hand, the League also gained members during this time through worlds that shared the Concord's unifying vision.

Governance and politics
In its modern form, the Crimson League acts as a free trade zone and handles certain external political affairs for members. It as well acts as a platform for such members to negotiate with each other over matters not covered by the Crimson League's mission. Previously, the League acted as a defensive coalition of its members, requiring members to come to aid one another in times of war and to adopt League-wide materiel standards. The League's military acted as a major influence on the armed forces of the early Covenant, though the succeeding millennia of the alliance have seen influence flowing both ways.

As the sphere of entities in Sanghelios' influence, the Crimson League has long been regarded as a culturally and politically conservative force by many polities active throughout the Covenant colonial sphere.

Former

 * Subanite Brotherhood
 * Archkaidonship of Qikost
 * Sanghelios Plenary Council
 * State of Vadam

Current

 * Swords of Sanghelios
 * Joorian Concord
 * Lords of the Silver Beacon

Military
As is typical of Sangheili-led armed forces, the Crimson League itself maintains only a small cadre of troops, with most of its military power coming from the member polities.

Historical
When the Crimson League was a proper military alliance, its materiel regulations were not strict. Instead, members were allowed a certain level of autonomy. That said, the organization as a whole subscribed to certain design philosophies such as a certain school of starship design.

Prominent members

 * Narada 'Zadum - Historical figure