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Known in the Halo series as "Elites," the Sangheili are without a doubt an iconic sci-fi alien and without them the series wouldn’t be the same. They’ve been around since Halo: Combat Evolv✨ed, and are still kicking ass in the galaxy under a number of different banners, as the Banished in Halo Infinite shows.
On the outside, they’re tough, energy-shield-covered aliens that are prone to peppering you with plasma weapons from afar before diving in close and slicing you in half with their laser sword. There’s a lot more going for them under the surface than power armor-wearing lads with lightsabers. So for 🔴those curious about how they gained such a high seat of influence within the Empire, here’s a condensed look at how the Elites joined the Covenant.
Who Are The Sangheili?
The Sangheili are an intelligent and militaristic species that believes in might over science. They're tall bipedal creatures with gaping maws filled with teeth, which would normally suggest them to be mindless monsters. However, they follow a strict warrior system that believes in an honor code with💯 a strong connection to f🦩amily.
Though stubborn, the species is open to change given the right amount of reasoning and evidence. They're also constantly trained to be fighters from a young age making them the perfect soldiers for the Covenant Empire.
The Sangheili Homeworld
The Sangheili race evolved on Sanghelios, a world that, like others, had been visited by the Forerunners eons ago to collect their race's DNA. The Sangheili lived in relative peace and harmony for most of their lives, albeit with the occasional skirmish between Clans. Then the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:firing of the rings wiped thཧem all out along with a🤪ll the other intelligent life in the galaxy.
After the species was reseeded on their home planet by the Forerunners, they pretty much picked up where they left off. Expanding as a species in technology and living relatively happily, that is until they discovered artifacts left behind by the Forerunners. At this point they began to worship these objects and any tampering of them was considered a heresy punished to the extreme, though these objects would later be studied in secret, with their technology reverse-engineered by Sangheili scientists. This was ꦏan act of defiance 🌺that saved the race from annihilation in the coming wars with the San’Shyuum hundreds of years later.
Eventually, the race would discover the ability to use slipspace technology and began exploring the wider galaxy around them, creating colonies and expanding their influence. Their pseudo-Empire was relatively vast and still prone to a little infighting, the most notable of which was the Clan Battles of Sanghelios, a time when various clans of Sangheili waged war on each other♉ for dominance or to settle disputes.
Encountering The Prophets
Later they would run into the San’Shyuum (the Prophets) a race of similarly advanced aliens that also revered and deified the Forerunner artifacts that were left behind in the galaxy. The two races when first encountering each other waged a holy war as each disagreed on how the Forerunner technology should be worshipped. The Sangheili tho🅰ught it should be left alone and untampered, whilst the San’Shyuum believed🅘 them to be gifts to be used as they saw fit.
It was a war the San’Shyuum had already fought before wꦆithin themselves during their early years as a civilization, and so they knew how to handle themselves. Whilst the Sangheili were more physically capabl💎e and numerous, the technology of the San’Shyuum was far more advanced and so each engagement was one of extreme casualties for the Sangheili.
Forming The Covenant
After years of attrition that skimmed the numbers of both species down substantially, a ceasefire was called and an uneasy alliance struck as even the most devout of those within the ranks saw that the survival of both species depended on reconstructing 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Forerunner technology for the betterment of all.
The San’Shyuum also poured on some deviously crafted flavor text that said using the scavenged equipment to follow the Great Journey would ascend the entire Sangheili race into godhood. And so the first steps of the Covenant Empire were taken. Though the relationshi꧃p had its stumbling steps in the early days, with rebel groups still full of resentment from the previous war requiring regular liquidation, after a time the two eventually prospered.
The Sangheili Role Within The Covenant
As one of the few races within the Covenant Empire to achieve Slipspace technology without outside interference, the Sangheili were offered a relatively high position within the Empire. Though they were mainly used as military muscle, the species brought a surprising amount o🎃f medical and technological advancements to the Covenant hegemony as a whol🍨e.
Things would operate smoothly for a time as the Empire expꦉanded, ♋bringing other like-minded species into the fold. Eventually, it would reach in size and power a point where they began a war on Humanity after discovering one of their colonies, judging them to be heretics in need of a good purging.
The Great Schism
The Great Schism is an event in the Covenant's long history that is still felt during the current era of the Halo games. It was a brutal civil war that split the empire apart and cost thousands of alien lives, fracturing the tenuous alliances made over hundreds of years, spawning numerous splinter groups. With each faction constantly battling for power, the Covenant Empire was sundered completely by the hands of those that first created it.
The kicking point that caused the Schism was a political shift during the last few months of the Human-Covenant War wh☂ich saw the High Prophet of Truth and a host of J✃iralhanae taking most of the power and influence in the Empire for themselves. After the death of the Prophet of Regret by Master Chief, the Sangheili were further stripped of their roles as they were deemed unfit by the San’Shyuum.
During the events of the Fall of High Charity, the Sangheili experienced mass slaughter at the hands of their allies, the Jiralhanae. This brutal attempt at assassination of an entire species created a schism as the Sangheili formed a tenuous alliance with the Humans. They were also joined by other members ꦬof the Covenant such as the Unggoy and Mgalekgolo who had previous💖 grudges with the Empire already.
Post-Great Schism
After the Great Schism, there was a huge power vacuum left within the Covenant. With no singular force left to fill it, most of the races previously involved split into splinter groups and fought within themselves and others to gain control. Sangheili society in particular plunged into absolute anarchy. With no centralized government, they broke apart into warring clans once again.
What was left of the species after the brutal civil wars were either groups still dogmatically worshipping the teachings of the San’Shyuum, those that rejected them vehemently, and those that sold their skills to the highest bidder, usually The Banished. With the species fractured and still trying to purge out the dark Covenant stain from their history, a modicum of peace has been restored to their homeworld, with Sanghelios later becoming a safe haven for 🃏surviving UNSC personnel after Cortana and her Created cohort took control of Earth and the majority of human colonies.
