We learned in Contact Harvest that Truth, Mercy, and Regret leaned from Mendicant Bias that we are the inheritors of the Forerunners, not the Covenant. They then declared us as heretics against the ‘gods’ and waved war against us. But since they knew the Forerunners chose us, why didn’t they try to get us to join the Covenant so we could help in their ‘Great Journey’. Even the Sangheili suggested that maybe they should offer us a chance to join the society, which the Prophets denied. They knew if anyone found out about our gift from the Forerunners, the Covenant would collapse. If we did join the Covenant, wouldn’t that help Truth, Mercy, and Regret. So why did they wage war against us rather than offer us a chance to join them?
The bottom line is selection of power and belief.
Lets for the purpose of investigation and explanation, assume that majority of humanity agreed upon a term of alliance with the Covenant Hegemony. The Humans would have been acknowledged as something on-par to that of the Kig-Yar, making their superiors the Sangheili, Jiralhanae and San’Shyuum. Eventually this turmoil to serve and not lead, or not be given equal standing, would have sparked a civil war against the Humans and upper leadership.
The Unggoy would most likely reconcile their allegiance to Humanity for the indifference of equal rights, as well as, the Kig-Yar relishing in the chaos would use this chance to loot and scavenge. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae would ultimately serve to defend the council and the Hierarchs, however, upon learning of the secret of the Reclaimers the Sangheili would most likely defend the “messiahs of the Forerunners”. This would turn the civil war in Humanities favor and allow them to take control of the Covenant Empire.Ironically a civil war still occurred due to the machinations and craving of power by the Heirarchs.
Note on Species: The Mgalekgolo, Huragok and Yanme’e are generally indifferent to allegiances so would side with the combat groups, but not the species as a whole.
Note on Spartans: The Spartan Program would have been seen as an abomination by the Sangheili, as well as, the AI integration systems due to the San’Shyuum’s fear of a “Mendicant Bias” level event happening again.
This comes up every once in a while, I’m surprised you haven’t seen this by now.
Tyler pretty much nails the whole issue. Integration would have gone badly for all involved and it placed risk on their power.
Put simply: once humanity joins your Covenant, it’s no longer your Covenant. Between our ability to use Forerunner interfaces, us registering as Forerunner artefacts and Monitors referring to us as Reclaimers, it would be pretty obvious that we’re in charge here.
Humanity is recklessly renown for adept at war… a revolt was bound to happen.
Forerunners ultimately had chosen the Humans to be the “Reclaimers” the Prophets saw them as a threat to their power and so they said “-Yoink- it kill 'em all”
Not to get real-world religiony here, but it’d be like if the church suddenly discovered jesus was sitting around alive somewhere all this time, and that his belief set was entirely different from their own. Whatever happens, it aint going to be pretty.
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> The bottom line is selection of power and belief.
>
> Lets for the purpose of investigation and explanation, assume that majority of humanity agreed upon a term of alliance with the Covenant Hegemony. The Humans would have been acknowledged as something on-par to that of the Kig-Yar, making their superiors the Sangheili, Jiralhanae and San’Shyuum. Eventually this turmoil to serve and not lead, or not be given equal standing, would have sparked a civil war against the Humans and upper leadership.
>
> The Unggoy would most likely reconcile their allegiance to Humanity for the indifference of equal rights, as well as, the Kig-Yar relishing in the chaos would use this chance to loot and scavenge. The Sangheili and Jiralhanae would ultimately serve to defend the council and the Hierarchs, however, upon learning of the secret of the Reclaimers the Sangheili would most likely defend the “messiahs of the Forerunners”. This would turn the civil war in Humanities favor and allow them to take control of the Covenant Empire.Ironically a civil war still occurred due to the machinations and craving of power by the Heirarchs.
>
> Note on Species: The Mgalekgolo, Huragok and Yanme’e are generally indifferent to allegiances so would side with the combat groups, but not the species as a whole.
> Note on Spartans: The Spartan Program would have been seen as an abomination by the Sangheili, as well as, the AI integration systems due to the San’Shyuum’s fear of a “Mendicant Bias” level event happening again.
I disagree with your 3rd paragraph. I think finding out about the humans would have broken their religious attitude since it was based upon all the Forerunners going to paradise. It would have been more likely that the Sangheili would have started a 3rd faction and just begin attacking everyone since they are too prideful to acknowledge their inferiors as gods or allies of gods and the San’Shyuum lying would make them attack them also.
You know what I wouldn’t mind for a novel or short, Halo: Parley.
During the early stages of the Human-Covenant War, a investigative vessel, known as the Archipelagos of Ardor, crash landed on an outskirt mining world, which, barely sees any respite from the fatal elements or assistance from the United Nations Space Command, to which, has made it a great asset to the Insurgent movement.
Join Shipmaster 'Vadumee and his faithful crew, on this unexpected journey and battle for survival, against the harsh elements and inhabitants of Titus IV. What will the miners of Titus IV do, when the encounter this unexpected visitors from the stars?
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> > We learned in Contact Harvest that Truth, Mercy, and Regret leaned from Mendicant Bias that we are the inheritors of the Forerunners, not the Covenant. They then declared us as heretics against the ‘gods’ and waved war against us. But since they knew the Forerunners chose us, why didn’t they try to get us to join the Covenant so we could help in their ‘Great Journey’.
I think you’ve pretty much answered your own question.
Truth, Mercy and Regret had just achieved the height of ultimate power within the Covenant, and the revelation that the Forerunners had for lack of a better term ‘marked’ the human race via their Luminaries presented to much of a risk to their new found power.
It’s debatable anyway whether the 3 Hierarch’s actually believed in the Great Journey. Despite playing the part of a mad-man with his finger on the proverbial nuclear button, Truth was conveniently outside the Milky Way Galaxy when he was going to try and activate the Great Journey, which would have wiped out all opposition to his rule in the form of the Sangheili and UNSC still in the Milky Way, while leaving himself and his followers unharmed on the Ark station safely outside the Halo Ring’s effective range.
Ironically I think some form of annexation of the UNSC by the Covenant, either welcomed or forced (or somewhere in between) would have been inevitable had humans not had the effect on Covenant luminaries that they did, as the prospect of resources, territory and a new potential sources of taxpayers would have been extremely tempting to the Covenant ruling elite. (Those Super Carrier’s don’t pay for themselves)
As it was the questions posed by exactly what interest the Forerunner had in humanity posed to much of a threat the Covenant’s existing power structure to justify any less moderate action.
Personally I don’t buy into the whole idea that humans are the ‘chosen’ race of the Forerunners, or that we have any kind of natural advantage over other alien species in the Halo Universe. The Sangheili also have the ability to activate and use Forerunner technology, and for all we know every other alien race does as well. The Covenant ruling leadership would continue to be dominated by whichever race holds the greatest share of population, resources and military capability.
The ‘Mantle of Responsibility’ was nothing more then a phony manifest destiny invented by the Forerunners to justify their own expansion, subjugation and atrocities committed against other races.
I don’t think there’s anything more to it then that.
Humans showed up on the artifact scanner, essentially making them think of human as the “living forerunners” Living Forerunners would destroy the entire principle of their religion.
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> Humans showed up on the artifact scanner, essentially making them think of human as the “living forerunners” Living Forerunners would destroy the entire principle of their religion.
This. The foundation of the Covenant is that Forerunners had ascended to paradise and left the galaxy, and all who follow their path can join them. Humans are however recognized as the inheritors of the Forerunner by Luminaries and other Forerunner AI, this fact goes against everything that the Covenant stands for.
Without this, the many races of the Covenant have little else in common, and a civil war would erupt (which it obviously did, albeit for other reasons as well).
The prophets didn’t want that information to be known throughout the covenant and thought it best to destroy humanity out of jealousy that humanity was chosen to inherit the forerunners legacy over the san shyum. had the remainder of the covenant learned this then they would have split long before the events of halo 2 and since the san shyum are not the most adept in combat they surely would have been destroyed by the warring factions be it the elites or humans