- roraj 196
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- Exalted Member
Posted by: ajw34307
Read the novels.
The San'Shyuum were caught in the middle of a civil war on their home planet. There were two factions, the Stoics and the Reformists. The former wanted to leave Forerunner technology alone for worship, the latter wanted to start using the technology for their benefit.
The Reformists infiltrated the Forerunner Keyship that was on their planet (the same one from the trilogy) and pulled out a massive chunk of their planet when they launched it (later being adapted as the dome of High Charity).
The Reformists encountered the Sangheili whilst adrift in space, they shared similar views to the Stoics and a war between the two races began. The San'Shyuum dominated space battles with the indestructible Keyship but the Sangheili dominated the ground battles.
The Covenant began after the Sangheili and San'Shyuum realised the war would drag their races to extinction. They made peace and began to pursue the Great Journey (a false religion created by the San'Shyuum in order to broker peace with the Sangheili). The Sangheili were the honour guard of the Covenant whilst the San'Shyuum would be the Prophets for their religion.
Over time, they discovered new races - most of them were conquered and absorbed into the Covenant.
That's a long story short, I'd suggest reading Contact Harvest and Cryptum for further details.
Thanks for the summary! I love the complexity of Halo. For example, it would have been easy to say that all the Covenant lived on one planet, and the Prophets simply wormed their way to the top of the social hierachy and began the Covenant, instead we have a more complex, intelligent story :)