
The Writ of Union was drawn up in 852 BCE in order to codify the Covenant. The San'Shyuum helped assuage the Sangheili by informing them of the Great Journey: by seeking out the Holy Rings scattered throughout the galaxy and utilizing them, a "Great Journey" would transform believers into godlike beings. This led both sides to an agreement that ended with the decommissioning of the Forerunner Dreadnought and a shaky alliance that eventually expanded into the Covenant. Even though the Sangheili were much more physically imposing and numerous, they suffered extreme casualties under the sheer power of the San'Shyuum's Dreadnought, a surviving Keyship, and by 876 BCE even the most devout had to admit their survival depended on the reconstitution of their own Forerunner technology.
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This sparked a war between the two races over how to treat the relics. In 938 BCE the Sangheili encountered the Reformist San'Shyuum, a race who also worshiped the Forerunners as gods, but had utilized Forerunner technology for their own needs, believing the technology had been left behind by the gods as gifts for their children. The Sangheili and San'Shyuum Reformists form the Covenant. These engagements became known as the Clan Battles of Sanghelios.

At some point, an unknown number of Sangheili clans waged war upon each other for numerous years on Sanghelios. The planet of Creck, discovered before the Sangheili's contact with the San'Shyuum was the seventy-sixth of designated worlds explored by Sangheili. Several hundred years prior to the formation of the Covenant, the Sangheili had developed slipspace technology and created dozens of independent colonies, though their homeworld of Sanghelios remained central to governance and culture. However, some Sangheili scientists defied their species' dogma and studied Forerunner artifacts in secret they would later become instrumental in helping the Sangheili reverse-engineer weapons against the San'Shyuum. The Sangheili revered the objects these "gods" had left, and considered tampering with them a heresy beyond any other. Īfter being returned to their homeworld, the Sangheili discovered artifacts left by the Forerunners on their planet. Much of the Sangheili's pre-Covenant history is being rediscovered by the Sangheili themselves. After the firing of the Halo Array, they were returned to their home planet to begin rebuilding their culture. During the Forerunner-Flood war, the Librarian visited the planet to retrieve specimens of the Sangheili for preservation aboard Installation 00. Sanghelios had at one point been visited by or had been in contact with the Forerunners. The Sangheili evolved in tropical wetlands of their homeworld, Sanghelios. However, they were opposed by multiple Sangheili factions with differing ideals of how to build a future for their civilization, and the species remained embroiled in civil war for several years while continuing hostilities with Jiralhanae groups, in a two-front war. In the post-war years, the Swords of Sanghelios, led by Arbiter Thel 'Vadam and a grand council of kaidons, emerged as the effective Sangheili government. The Great Schism formed the bedrock of the Covenant Empire's ultimate collapse and the end of the Human-Covenant War. A significant number of Sangheili sided with the UNSC against the Prophet-led Covenant this alliance continued to hold in the post-war era. Consequently, the Sangheili led a rebellion against the Prophets. The Prophets sought to achieve this through the use of the other Covenant races, primarily the Jiralhanae. The two remaining Hierarchs held the Sangheili responsible for the Prophet of Regret's death, and the species was seen as "unfit" to continue to guard the Prophets. This was established after the assassination of the High Prophet of Regret at the hands of John-117. Īfter the High Prophets Truth and Mercy ordered the genocide of the entire Sangheili race during the Great Schism, the species was forced into civil war against the Covenant proper. They had a very strong rivalry with the Jiralhanae, which finally led to genocidal violence during the Great Schism at the conclusion of the Human-Covenant War. Originally one of the Covenant's two founding species, the Sangheili formed the hegemony's military backbone until just before the end of its existence. Named after their home planet, Sanghelios, they have historically been known to humans as Elites for their former role in the Covenant's military hierarchy. The Sangheili ( Macto cognatus in Latin taxonomy, meaning "I glorify my kin") are a saurian sapient species known for their warrior culture and combat skill.

" On the blood of our fathers, on the blood of our sons, we swore to uphold the Covenant!" - Rtas 'Vadumee before the raid on the Threshold gas mine.
