Sangheili honour is BS...

Community Halo Universe
1

Anyone who follows the Sangheili cultural lore will always say that they are an honorable species. Much of the lore around their species has been put into establishing this fact. I disagree with this notion. I don’t believe that they have any sort of honour as we know it. They are hypocrites, and their notion of honor is littered by double standards.

Let me give an example:

Yesterday, I was watching a Halo 2A terminal. It was the one that you get from the mission “Outskirts”. Basically, it outlines The Sangheili, and in paticular, Thel’s sense of honour concerning combat against unarmed enemy combatants. Taking an exact quote from the video, when Thel attacked a UNSC base, he engaged a group of Marines “that were so unprepared for the arrival of Covenant forces, that Vadamee found them unarmed and defenseless.”

“In an unexpected display of what appears to be honour, Vadamee allowed the [Marines] to finish gearing up before engaging them in combat”.

The Sangheili sense of honor is also described as “strict” in this term. This means little to no room for compromise or double standards.

So, if the Elites are opposed to killing unarmed enemy combatants, why do they murder millions of unarmed civilians using their ship-mounted cleansing beams. Shouldn’t the Elites be opposed to this practice? With that said, why are they allowed to kill ANYONE or glass ANYTHING with their cleansing beams? If the Sangheili sense of honour is so “strict” about killing enemies who cannot adequately defend themselves, should this not preclude the use of cleansing beams? How does an armed Marine defend against a ship glassing your planet from orbit?

This is a pretty huge loophole in their sense of honour, that they seem to ignore because they are, at heart, genocidal maniacs (at least, from what I have seen).

It seems to me that the Sangheili are also hypocrites as a result, and their honour is valueless. Does anyone else think this, or is it just me? Is there anything in the lore that explains this loophole, or is it just something that The Sangheili are comfortable with? How have they managed to reconcile hypocrisy and honour into a system that governs their entire society?

2

> 2533274800842897;1:
> Anyone who follows the Sangheili cultural lore will always say that they are an honorable species. Much of the lore around their species has been put into establishing this fact. I disagree with this notion. I don’t believe that they have any sort of honour as we know it. They are hypocrites, and their notion of honor is littered by double standards.
>
> Let me give an example:
>
> Yesterday, I was watching a Halo 2A terminal. It was the one that you get from the mission “Outskirts”. Basically, it outlines The Sangheili, and in paticular, Thel’s sense of honour concerning combat against unarmed enemy combatants. Taking an exact quote from the video, when Thel attacked a UNSC base, he engaged a group of Marines “that were so unprepared for the arrival of Covenant forces, that Vadamee found them unarmed and defenseless.”
>
> “In an unexpected display of what appears to be honour, Vadamee allowed the [Marines] to finish gearing up before engaging them in combat”.
>
> The Sangheili sense of honor is also described as “strict” in this term. This means little to no room for compromise or double standards.
>
> So, if the Elites are opposed to killing unarmed enemy combatants, why do they murder millions of unarmed civilians using their ship-mounted cleansing beams. Shouldn’t the Elites be opposed to this practice? With that said, why are they allowed to kill ANYONE or glass ANYTHING with their cleansing beams? If the Sangheili sense of honour is so “strict” about killing enemies who cannot adequately defend themselves, should this not preclude the use of cleansing beams? How does an armed Marine defend against a ship glassing your planet from orbit?
>
> This is a pretty huge loophole in their sense of honour, that they seem to ignore because they are, at heart, genocidal maniacs (at least, from what I have seen).
>
> It seems to me that the Sangheili are also hypocrites as a result, and their honour is valueless. Does anyone else think this, or is it just me? Is there anything in the lore that explains this loophole, or is it just something that The Sangheili are comfortable with? How have they managed to reconcile hypocrisy and honour into a system that governs their entire society?

Read the short story “The Return” from Halo Evolutions. It really delves into the Sangheili mindset about their actions.
Basically, they were blinded by their religious fervor and didn’t feel that glassing populations of “heretics” from orbit was dishonorable, since it wasn’t direct combat. They believed their acts of genocide were only acceptable because humans were infidels.
Besides, wiping people out from orbit with a flick of a switch is much different from fighting and killing them one on one; one’s a lot easier to justify.

Also, it is revealed that when the Sangheili realized their slaughtering of humans was all for a lie, they felt deeply dishonored and humiliated, regardless of what Kilo Five novels may claim. So, I’d say they were more blinded than hypocritical. They felt their actions were justified, no more.
An excellent parallel would be modern Middle Eastern terrorists- They consider themselves to be honorable and righteous, but since other people aren’t Islamic they’re viewed as infidels worthy only of death. Therefore, killing other people isn’t a problem for them. Same idea with the Elites.

3

One might also view this issue through the lens that, usually, the Covenant defeats the UNSC in a naval engagement in the planet’s orbit prior to beginning their orbital bombardment. They are usually victorious. Same thing for when they descend to a planet’s surface for an invasion. Point is, the Covenant rarely if ever simply shows up to a human planet and begins glassing it. They usually secure it first.

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> 2533275034118914;2:
> > 2533274800842897;1:
> > Anyone who follows the Sangheili cultural lore will always say that they are an honorable species. Much of the lore around their species has been put into establishing this fact. I disagree with this notion. I don’t believe that they have any sort of honour as we know it. They are hypocrites, and their notion of honor is littered by double standards.
> >
> > Let me give an example:
> >
> > Yesterday, I was watching a Halo 2A terminal. It was the one that you get from the mission “Outskirts”. Basically, it outlines The Sangheili, and in paticular, Thel’s sense of honour concerning combat against unarmed enemy combatants. Taking an exact quote from the video, when Thel attacked a UNSC base, he engaged a group of Marines “that were so unprepared for the arrival of Covenant forces, that Vadamee found them unarmed and defenseless.”
> >
> > “In an unexpected display of what appears to be honour, Vadamee allowed the [Marines] to finish gearing up before engaging them in combat”.
> >
> > The Sangheili sense of honor is also described as “strict” in this term. This means little to no room for compromise or double standards.
> >
> > So, if the Elites are opposed to killing unarmed enemy combatants, why do they murder millions of unarmed civilians using their ship-mounted cleansing beams. Shouldn’t the Elites be opposed to this practice? With that said, why are they allowed to kill ANYONE or glass ANYTHING with their cleansing beams? If the Sangheili sense of honour is so “strict” about killing enemies who cannot adequately defend themselves, should this not preclude the use of cleansing beams? How does an armed Marine defend against a ship glassing your planet from orbit?
> >
> > This is a pretty huge loophole in their sense of honour, that they seem to ignore because they are, at heart, genocidal maniacs (at least, from what I have seen).
> >
> > It seems to me that the Sangheili are also hypocrites as a result, and their honour is valueless. Does anyone else think this, or is it just me? Is there anything in the lore that explains this loophole, or is it just something that The Sangheili are comfortable with? How have they managed to reconcile hypocrisy and honour into a system that governs their entire society?
>
>
> Read the short story “The Return” from Halo Evolutions. It really delves into the Sangheili mindset about their actions.
> Basically, they were blinded by their religious fervor and didn’t feel that glassing populations of “heretics” from orbit was dishonorable, since it wasn’t direct combat. They believed their acts of genocide were only acceptable because humans were infidels.
> Besides, wiping people out from orbit with a flick of a switch is much different from fighting and killing them one on one; one’s a lot easier to justify.
>
> Also, it is revealed that when the Sangheili realized their slaughtering of humans was all for a lie, they felt deeply dishonored and humiliated, regardless of what Kilo Five novels may claim. So, I’d say they were more blinded than hypocritical. They felt their actions were justified, no more.
> An excellent parallel would be modern Middle Eastern terrorists- They consider themselves to be honorable and righteous, but since other people aren’t Islamic they’re viewed as infidels worthy only of death. Therefore, killing other people isn’t a problem for them. Same idea with the Elites.

Interesting analogy. I never got around to reading the Return. I only know the general plot behind it, but I never got the tiny details.

Now, I noticed you said that they felt humiliated about the whole ordeal, but you also say “despite what Kilo-5 says” Why would the events that took place in Kilo-5 be any less relevant than the events of The Return? Aren’t they both on the same level of Canon authority? Wouldn’t the events of Kilo-Five have precedence, since it is more modern and in-line with 343’s lore? Why the dismissal? Why is it so unrealistic to believe that some Elites were simply hypocritcal when it came to their honour? They have already established double standards? Why not one more?

I will accept that perhaps some Elites felt shame, but surely, there have to be Elites who were hypocritical about their honour.

> 2533274806352868;3:
> One might also view this issue through the lens that, usually, the Covenant defeats the UNSC in a naval engagement in the planet’s orbit prior to beginning their orbital bombardment. They are usually victorious. Same thing for when they descend to a planet’s surface for an invasion. Point is, the Covenant rarely if ever simply shows up to a human planet and begins glassing it. They usually secure it first.

In the very same Terminal, they began bombarding the planet right away. They snuck past the defenses and began to use their ships to demolish the surface.

5

> Now, I noticed you said that they felt humiliated about the whole ordeal, but you also say “despite what Kilo-5 says” Why would the events that took place in Kilo-5 be any less relevant than the events of The Return? Aren’t they both on the same level of Canon authority? Wouldn’t the events of Kilo-Five have precedence, since it is more modern and in-line with 343’s lore? Why the dismissal? Why is it so unrealistic to believe that some Elites were simply hypocritical when it came to their honour? They have already established double standards? Why not one more?
>
> I will accept that perhaps some Elites felt shame, but surely, there have to be Elites who were hypocritical about their honour.

Well, the reason I said that is because in the Kilo-Five novels, basically all Elites still continue to view humans as scum that needs to be eradicated even after the revelation that their genocide was based on a lie. Basically, in those novels, Elites fall into two categories: (1) those who wish to exterminate humanity and (2) those who still want to destroy humanity but pretend to be peaceful so they’ll have time to rebuild and prepare.

Because there’s never really a counter-balancing argument, I feel that the post-war Sangheili presented in The Return is the more accurate depiction. The Shipmaster character certainly isn’t a human-lover, but he’s no longer a rabid warmonger either. He’s humiliated and angered about his slaughtering innocents for the Prophets, concerned about the future of his species and his place in that future, and he’s equally willing to either cooperate or fight with humans to find his purpose.

Of course some Sangheili are still going to be hostile towards humans, but they’re going to be a mixed bag. I’d be inclined to accept the more balanced interpretation.

6

I always thought their honour was meant to be slightly hypocritical like how San’Shyum names vs actions were. Like in Headhunters when the elite says the spartans are dishonourable for using stealth - yet there are masses of Sangheilie that use active camo. Also consider that they will lack honour towards Unggoy and send waves of them in to soak up enemy fire and weaken them, then waltz in to fight a less than 100% enemy…that is of course if they don’t just glass them as others have mentioned. Kilo 5 took an interesting slant on some Sangheilie not being as honourbound with the attack on a keep full of poorly armed women and children by a rival clan. I like this approach though, its realistic as people will change what is honourable to suit them and makes their honour more complex and varied - maybe Vadam honour differs to Wattin honour etc.

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@ FourtEchelon:

I didn’t get the feeling from Kilo5 that those were the only Sangheilie mindsets - what about Thel and groups that support him? What about Sangheilie that seemed very curious about Phillips and didn’t kill him on sight? I agree focus was more so on those against humanity but the story was quite specific.Also the Shipmaster from the return seemed perfectly happy to torture that human at the end - his and others shame is less about love of humans and more about the lies and mass killings met out on his people by the San’Shyum.

If we look at Ghosts of Onyx the Elites under Xytan still really wanted humans dead even with all the revelations of the Great Schism.

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> 2533274794866970;7:
> @ FourtEchelon:
>
> I didn’t get the feeling from Kilo5 that those were the only Sangheilie mindsets - what about Thel and groups that support him? What about Sangheilie that seemed very curious about Phillips and didn’t kill him on sight? I agree focus was more so on those against humanity but the story was quite specific.Also the Shipmaster from the return seemed perfectly happy to torture that human at the end - his and others shame is less about love of humans and more about the lies and mass killings met out on his people by the San’Shyum.
>
> If we look at Ghosts of Onyx the Elites under Xytan still really wanted humans dead even with all the revelations of the Great Schism.

In that sense, you’re right. However, you’ll notice that the Shipmaster’s actions weren’t caused by a blind, generalized hatred of humans, but more by a strong desire to find information. I may be reading into the story a bit, but I’m fairly sure that he’d have just as willingly cooperated with the human if he felt it’d benefit him more.
I guess I’d say both stories were accurate in the areas they focused on, I just personally prefer the Return’s focus and storytelling.
And now, note that we’re now seeing Elites being driven by personal motivation, patriotism and even selfishness instead of blind fervor- I think this’ll affect Halo’s universe in the future.

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> 2533274800842897;1:
> Anyone who follows the Sangheili cultural lore will always say that they are an honorable species.

I think the jury is still out on that. Depending on what they do after Halo 3 and what kind of reparations and atonements they make for not only the atrocity of the Human-Covenant war but also for the centuries of racial injustices that they committed and benefited from under the Covenant will determine whether they are really an honourable species at their core, or just a race of fraudulent pretenders with too much to say about other people and nothing to back up their own claims to honour.

There’s already suggestions that the client races are pushing back - the Brutes are consolidating and gathering military strength in the fringes of the old Covenant empire; the Grunts hate the Elites, and another Grunt rebellion would be disastrous for Sanghelios; humanity has no fondness for them outside of what keeps humanity alive in the face of still hostile Covenant groups; the Jackals don’t really like them; one Queen openly called a Sangheili scum to his face in the Escalation comic.

So the Sangheili changing for the better won’t only be a test of their so called honour, but of their intelligence in realising that they have almost no friends in a galaxy that hates them and has become sick of them.

> o, if the Elites are opposed to killing unarmed enemy combatants, why do they murder millions of unarmed civilians using their ship-mounted cleansing beams. Shouldn’t the Elites be opposed to this practice? With that said, why are they allowed to kill ANYONE or glass ANYTHING with their cleansing beams? If the Sangheili sense of honour is so “strict” about killing enemies who cannot adequately defend themselves, should this not preclude the use of cleansing beams? How does an armed Marine defend against a ship glassing your planet from orbit?

I’d really like this brought up in the fiction as well. I suspect that it was initially because of religious barriers preventing them from identifying humans as legitimate recipients of their honour. However as their opinions of humans began to change over the course of the war I can only guess that it fell back to the same kind of principles that are behind things like the Milgram findings and the Asch paradigm; obedience and conformity. Sesa said in the terminals that the Elites didn’t question because “questioning is what got the Arbiter title shamed”, i.e. they were too scared. However that’s no excuse, and casts their honour into doubt due to suggestions of cowardice.

> This is a pretty huge loophole in their sense of honour, that they seem to ignore because they are, at heart, genocidal maniacs (at least, from what I have seen).

It’s unlikely that a fully functional and highly successful species of native tier 3 technology (aka post nuclear; post mass-mechanized warfare) would be genocidal maniacs, to be honest.

> It seems to me that the Sangheili are also hypocrites as a result, and their honour is valueless. Does anyone else think this, or is it just me?

It does strike me as being valueless. I count myself as a person who is a Sangheili fan, but more of a fan of their potential (Which they could squander and I hope they don’t) but I can’t say that they are honourable when they are glassing planets/using active camouflage, and can hardly disagree with accusations of hypocrisy when they do these things and then shout about how humans or other species have no honour for doing similar, or for just not possessing honour at all.

I don’t think there’s sufficient evidence to convict them of being dishonourable either though due to the issues of both religion and the Covenant leadership’s orders being absolute. I think we need to see how they behave without dogma and with their own independence.

> Is there anything in the lore that explains this loophole, or is it just something that The Sangheili are comfortable with? How have they managed to reconcile hypocrisy and honour into a system that governs their entire society?

It’s never been brought up, and no Sangheili has ever been faced with the question as far as I know. The only thing was a Sangheili accusing S-III’s of being cowards for using active camouflage, who was quickly put in his place by being told that his species invented the damn thing. He obviously wasn’t too bright.

Broken Circle revealed that they have an issue with the idea of someone being bombed from orbit when the Prophet’s were about to do it to them, and a particular aversion to the concept of woman and children being killed by such methods. Of course that was 3000 years ago; the culture may have changed. Additionally, that was them on the receiving end. However it was an idea also in the encyclopaedia that they don’t view the killing of innocents as legitimate combat worth consideration for promotions. So, it’s there. It’s just not getting through to humans or other races for some reason. I think it’s because the Sangheili were too scared to do anything about it when their religious justifications started to deteriorate later in the war. I also don’t think they have too much respect for people who demonstrate a lack of integrity, fortitude and military capability, which seems to be the key difference imo for as to why they increasingly accept humanity post Halo 3, and accept the Hunters, but little of other races - which from what I’ve seen really only seems to be the Grunts and the Jackals. As for the Brutes, well, the Brutes told them where to stick their caste system. I’d imagine that if there were no caste system then the Elites and Brutes might have gotten along much better.

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> 2533275034118914;2:
> > 2533274800842897;1:
> > Anyone who follows the Sangheili cultural lore will always say that they are an honorable species. Much of the lore around their species has been put into establishing this fact. I disagree with this notion. I don’t believe that they have any sort of honour as we know it. They are hypocrites, and their notion of honor is littered by double standards.
> >
> > Let me give an example:
> >
> > Yesterday, I was watching a Halo 2A terminal. It was the one that you get from the mission “Outskirts”. Basically, it outlines The Sangheili, and in paticular, Thel’s sense of honour concerning combat against unarmed enemy combatants. Taking an exact quote from the video, when Thel attacked a UNSC base, he engaged a group of Marines “that were so unprepared for the arrival of Covenant forces, that Vadamee found them unarmed and defenseless.”
> >
> > “In an unexpected display of what appears to be honour, Vadamee allowed the [Marines] to finish gearing up before engaging them in combat”.
> >
> > The Sangheili sense of honor is also described as “strict” in this term. This means little to no room for compromise or double standards.
> >
> > So, if the Elites are opposed to killing unarmed enemy combatants, why do they murder millions of unarmed civilians using their ship-mounted cleansing beams. Shouldn’t the Elites be opposed to this practice? With that said, why are they allowed to kill ANYONE or glass ANYTHING with their cleansing beams? If the Sangheili sense of honour is so “strict” about killing enemies who cannot adequately defend themselves, should this not preclude the use of cleansing beams? How does an armed Marine defend against a ship glassing your planet from orbit?
> >
> > This is a pretty huge loophole in their sense of honour, that they seem to ignore because they are, at heart, genocidal maniacs (at least, from what I have seen).
> >
> > It seems to me that the Sangheili are also hypocrites as a result, and their honour is valueless. Does anyone else think this, or is it just me? Is there anything in the lore that explains this loophole, or is it just something that The Sangheili are comfortable with? How have they managed to reconcile hypocrisy and honour into a system that governs their entire society?
>
>
> Read the short story “The Return” from Halo Evolutions. It really delves into the Sangheili mindset about their actions.
> Basically, they were blinded by their religious fervor and didn’t feel that glassing populations of “heretics” from orbit was dishonorable, since it wasn’t direct combat. They believed their acts of genocide were only acceptable because humans were infidels.
> Besides, wiping people out from orbit with a flick of a switch is much different from fighting and killing them one on one; one’s a lot easier to justify.
>
> Also, it is revealed that when the Sangheili realized their slaughtering of humans was all for a lie, they felt deeply dishonored and humiliated, regardless of what Kilo Five novels may claim. So, I’d say they were more blinded than hypocritical. They felt their actions were justified, no more.
> An excellent parallel would be modern Middle Eastern terrorists- They consider themselves to be honorable and righteous, but since other people aren’t Islamic they’re viewed as infidels worthy only of death. Therefore, killing other people isn’t a problem for them. Same idea with the Elites.

This. For thousands of years their society wasn’t even their own.

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It’s their -Yoinking!- religion that corrupts them. But yes yours was an example of hypocrisy. I’m sure people here justify the elites that acted for religion but not the terrorists that nowadays kill for religion or the nazis that did it for an ideal. Both those ideals and religion are (probably) wrong or misinterpretation, as elites’ religion.
I said probably because I don’t want to get banned for saying that a real life religion is false.

12

I believe this is even discussed in some of the fiction now. For what it is worth though, it can be said that the Sangheili feel as though personal combat is where the real honor belongs. Thel was always a very unusual Elite, with a strong respect for humanity, as shown in the Terminals, but also a man with a job. A job that if he did not do, he would be executed for heresy. His religion corrupted him and all of his people’s senses of honor. All Thel could do was to hold on to what he had; for a Sangheili of the Covenant, allowing the enemy soldiers to arm themselves before fighting is as honorable as he could afford.

13

I agree.

14

So you expect for the elites to take over a planet by getting into personal combat with everyone on the planet?
“You, old man, here is a gun… BLAAAARRGGHHH!!”
“You, person in a wheelchair, here’s a sword! WORT! WORT! WORT!”
“You, baby, here’s a grenade. RAAARRRR GABAGUUUUUU!!”

Dude, they OBVIOUSLY mean the fighting forces. After they defeat the fighting forces of a planet and there is nothing else but civvies, they consider the battle won and just go on to do their thing. The deaths of the civilians are on the hands of the fighting forces that didnt succeed.

15

> 2533274915926813;14:
> So you expect for the elites to take over a planet by getting into personal combat with everyone on the planet?
> “You, old man, here is a gun… BLAAAARRGGHHH!!”
> “You, person in a wheelchair, here’s a sword! WORT! WORT! WORT!”
> “You, baby, here’s a grenade. RAAARRRR GABAGUUUUUU!!”
>
> Dude, they OBVIOUSLY mean the fighting forces. After they defeat the fighting forces of a planet and there is nothing else but civvies, they consider the battle won and just go on to do their thing. The deaths of the civilians are on the hands of the fighting forces that didnt succeed.

So, are you saying that The Sangheili have no qualms committing mass murder against unarmed people because they managed to defeat the armed forces? Sounds like Sangheili honour manages to justify genocide.

Previous posters have claimed that the religion of The Covenant had corrupted the Sangheili sense of honour, but you make it sound like The Covenant and Sangheili honour go hand in hand. If Sangheili honour says it is alright to mass murder unarmed people because the blood of the innocent can put on the hands of a dead enemy, then Sangheili honour sounds like a very evil mantra.

If their honour was pure, than they should be opposed to killing unarmed people. Clearly, as others have stated, it is corrupted. I would go so far as to say All Elites have a corrupted sense of honour, even The Arbiter, as cooperative and progressive as he is. He may be friendly to Humans, but the seeds of evil are part of his way of life…and those seeds of evil is Sangheili honour.

16

OP, your mistake is that your trying to make human sense of morality universal for all species. If you read any of the books that came out after Halo 2, you, would realize that morality is vey blue and orange for other species, so in the sangheili’s eyes, humans are overpopulating the galaxy and threaten to destroy the cultures of the universe, which is an ultimate evil to them, while things like genocide and persecution are more exceptable. While for humans, sangheili are terrible for attempted genocide and their warrior culture, but they excuse their planet hogging ways and their dominating culture.

TL;DR: your trying to compare apples to oranges.

17

^ Humans are not “overpopulating” the galaxy. That’s just Traviss’ fundamental lack of an understanding of the size of the galaxy compared to human space proper. Human’s overpopulating the galaxy in 2552 is a bit like saying that a spilled vial of nail polish in the toilet bowl is the same as the oil slick that hit the Bay of Mexico a few years ago.

Anyway…

It’s probably worth considering that there are probably multiple different identities to “Sangheili honour”. One needs to look at how many different cultures there exist on Earth, and then imagine how that diversity would be increased by thousands of years of interstellar colonisation driving these distant interstellar communities further from the identity of the homeland. I’d bet that even the disparate states of Sanghelios have different cultural mindsets among themselves like the nations of Earth. Some will, therefore, probably incorporate the Covenant’s corruption more or less than others.

They (Sangheili cultures) also shouldn’t be treated as a static phenomenon. They’ve undoubtedly underwent a lot of change since the start of the Covenant, and they are currently undergoing a massive shift just now.Their cultures aren’t going to be the same in a matter of years in the story. In that sense, I’d disagree with the conclusion that Thel is corrupted. This is an individual who did such a complete 180 degree turn on his views in the space of a few months that we really cannot assume anything about his new mindset from the old one (Going from an individual who built his career upon the destruction of humanity to someone who has not only built it now upon its survival but the establishment of an alliance with them).

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> 2533274822366750;16:
> OP, your mistake is that your trying to make human sense of morality universal for all species. If you read any of the books that came out after Halo 2, you, would realize that morality is vey blue and orange for other species, so in the sangheili’s eyes, humans are overpopulating the galaxy and threaten to destroy the cultures of the universe, which is an ultimate evil to them, while things like genocide and persecution are more exceptable. While for humans, sangheili are terrible for attempted genocide and their warrior culture, but they excuse their planet hogging ways and their dominating culture.
>
> TL;DR: your trying to compare apples to oranges.

It is more a matter of hypocrisy than anything. A double standard by any name is what it is.

I am aware that they are a different species with different practices. However, there will always be a universal component to something. In this case, it is what we call “the facts”. The fact is, The Sangheili do demonstrate double standards, they did mass murder people, and they were inconsistent with their killing. They had no qualms roasting civilians from obit, but they themselves objected to orbital bombardment when The Prophets tried to do it to them (The Sangheili). They abuse active camo, and then call Spartans dishonourable.

They are hypocritical and inconsistent. That is universal.

It is like me, telling you, that “I can fight you using dirty tactics, but you are scum if you fight back using the same tactics.” It is a double standard.

19

> 2533274800842897;15:
> > 2533274915926813;14:
> > So you expect for the elites to take over a planet by getting into personal combat with everyone on the planet?
> > “You, old man, here is a gun… BLAAAARRGGHHH!!”
> > “You, person in a wheelchair, here’s a sword! WORT! WORT! WORT!”
> > “You, baby, here’s a grenade. RAAARRRR GABAGUUUUUU!!”
> >
> > Dude, they OBVIOUSLY mean the fighting forces. After they defeat the fighting forces of a planet and there is nothing else but civvies, they consider the battle won and just go on to do their thing. The deaths of the civilians are on the hands of the fighting forces that didnt succeed.
>
>
>
> So, are you saying that The Sangheili have no qualms committing mass murder against unarmed people because they managed to defeat the armed forces? Sounds like Sangheili honour manages to justify genocide.
>
> Previous posters have claimed that the religion of The Covenant had corrupted the Sangheili sense of honour, but you make it sound like The Covenant and Sangheili honour go hand in hand. If Sangheili honour says it is alright to mass murder unarmed people because the blood of the innocent can put on the hands of a dead enemy, then Sangheili honour sounds like a very evil mantra.
>
> If their honour was pure, than they should be opposed to killing unarmed people. Clearly, as others have stated, it is corrupted. I would go so far as to say All Elites have a corrupted sense of honour, even The Arbiter, as cooperative and progressive as he is. He may be friendly to Humans, but the seeds of evil are part of his way of life…and those seeds of evil is Sangheili honour.

Your view of honor is not this alien’s sense of honor, obviously. Dont know why would grade the honor of anything based on just your standards.

And, yes, the Prophets do pull and twist some stuff for “the greater good” but even with that this is not going to turn this fictional alien honor in to what you consider honor.

20

> 2533274835068816;17:
> ^ Humans are not “overpopulating” the galaxy. That’s just Traviss’ fundamental lack of an understanding of the size of the galaxy compared to human space proper. Human’s overpopulating the galaxy in 2552 is a bit like saying that a spilled vial of nail polish in the toilet bowl is the same as the oil slick that hit the Bay of Mexico a few years ago.
>
> Anyway…
>
> It’s probably worth considering that there are probably multiple different identities to “Sangheili honour”. One needs to look at how many different cultures there exist on Earth, and then imagine how that diversity would be increased by thousands of years of interstellar colonisation driving these distant interstellar communities further from the identity of the homeland. I’d bet that even the disparate states of Sanghelios have different cultural mindsets among themselves like the nations of Earth. Some will, therefore, probably incorporate the Covenant’s corruption more or less than others.
>
> They (Sangheili cultures) also shouldn’t be treated as a static phenomenon. They’ve undoubtedly underwent a lot of change since the start of the Covenant, and they are currently undergoing a massive shift just now.Their cultures aren’t going to be the same in a matter of years in the story. In that sense, I’d disagree with the conclusion that Thel is corrupted. This is an individual who did such a complete 180 degree turn on his views in the space of a few months that we really cannot assume anything about his new mindset from the old one (Going from an individual who built his career upon the destruction of humanity to someone who has not only built it now upon its survival but the establishment of an alliance with them).

Well if people actually paid more attention to SpOps instead of bashing 343i they would be able to see this.
Thel considered drawing a weapon without intending to use it as a grave dishonour. Jul, Gek and other Sangheili from Sanghelios and other core worlds do not.

Also we know that Sangheili who do not fight, like the serfs, and some warriors as well (like Jul) do not care about honour.
Then there is also the matter of medicine. Some States, like Vadam, consider it a dishonour to receive medical treatment. Other states do not. The proof lies in the bestiarum, where it was said that medicine prospered before the Sangheili encountered the San’Shyuum and we know that regional honour codes have stayed unchanged for millennia. Also Sangheili who are not just Warriors, would be more than happy to receive medical help without thinking of blood loss as a dishonour.

Finally, Sangheili Warriors respect the other Warriors. I do not remember the honour code stating that Sangheili cannot erase infidels from existence via the pressing of a button. Humanity did not believe in the Forerunners. For the Sangheili during the war that was an unimaginable crime. Why should they respect the humans then? Let us also not forget that the glassing of a world was a process that required a certain ritual.