Posted by:ScubaToaster
Posted by: HipiO7
This man, this man right here put it so eloquently that I actually cancelled my own 2000+ word long post.
/slow clap for respect
:)
The person who said participating is important, not winning, obviously never won anything.
Oh god.
The Covenant was formed by the Elites and Prophets. The other races were later added through conquest and by absorbing them.
Before the foundation of the Covenant, the Elites and Prophets were in a war over Forerunner artifacts, which Elites considered sacrosant and the Prophets manipulated them to gain their technology. This infuriated the Elites which saw it as blasphemy and fought the Prophets. The Elites were vastly superior when it came to regular armies and one on one, but the tech obtained from the Forerunner artifacts gave the Prophets an edge (especially thanks to the Forerunner Dreadnought in space combat). The Elites were forced to also investigate and use Forerunner artifacts to level the playing field, violating the reason they entered the war.
The war ended with the Prophets almost exterminated, and the Elites severly damaged. They signed a treaty which name I can´t remember and thus formed the Covenant.