History Characters / HaloTheCovenant

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: The Truth in ''Halo 2'' is not the same Truth in ''Halo 3''. In his debut, he's calm to the point of being [[TheStoic stone-faced]], and distinctly secular, in contrast to the dogmatic Prophet of Regret and the moderate Prophet of Mercy. In general, he lacked religious reverence, and had a calculating and manipulative persona. In ''Halo 3'', however, he suddenly and inexplicably turns into a [[LargeHam bombastic]], [[ItsAllAboutMe narcissistic megalomaniac]] who's outwardly just as fanatical over the Great Journey as his fellow Prophets, with hardly a trace of his former intelligence and subtlety. There are various [[WatsonianVersusDoylist Watsonian and Doylist]] explanations which attempt to explain his sudden change of character. It's worth noting that when he appeared in expanded universe works, even those written or produced long after Halo 3 was released, the writers tended to ignore his Halo 3 portrayal and depict him much more in line with his Halo 2 persona.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: The Truth in ''Halo 2'' is not the same Truth in ''Halo 3''. In his debut, he's much calmer, to the point of [[TheStoic stone-faced]], and distinctly secular, contrasting the dogmatic Regret (who wants to [[MemeticMutation burn a path into the divine beyond]]) and the moderate Mercy (who notably basks in awe of Halo and expresses sorrow at 04's destruction, much unlike Truth). His general lack of religious reverence, combined with his calculating and manipulative persona, gave the impression he ''knew'' the Great Journey was false (which was confirmed in subsequent material), but kept up appearances so the Covenant would remain under his control (and even started the war with Earth purely to keep the aforementioned AwfulTruth from spilling out). All told, he cared much more about playing politics, culling dissent, and [[{{Greed}} empowering himself even more than his rank would already allow]] in ''Halo 2''. In ''Halo 3'', however, he suddenly and inexplicably turned into a [[LargeHam bombastic]], [[ItsAllAboutMe narcissistic megalomaniac]] who's just as fanatical over the Great Journey as his fellow Prophets. To compound the confusion, every piece of expanded universe media that he appears in, even those released well after ''Halo 3'', portray him much more in line with his ''Halo 2'' personality, with only a very passing HandWave that he's "likely insane" despite his behavior stating otherwise. One popular theory is that he was driven mad by both Guilty Spark's full confirmation of the falseness of the entire Covenant religion, and the Covenant completely splintering despite dedicating his career to keeping it intact. Another is that he was infected by the Flood at High Charity, and it slowly drove him mad over the course of ''Halo 3'' up until his death.

* FantasyCultureCounterpart: According to WordOfGod, the Jiralhanae were designed to invoke the Migration Period Germanic tribes known for overthrowing the Western Roman Empire, including the Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Lombards.

* StoutStrength: Stronger than they look, judging by the heavy equipment they're sometimes seen carrying, their tendency to aim and fire heavy weaponry like Fuel Rods one handed, and their ability to disembowel humans with their bare hands.

* AwfulTruth: He learns from "the Oracle" in the Forerunner Dreadnought that humanity is meant to inherit the Forerunners' legacy. Fearing the Covenant will lose faith from learning these "reclaimers" did not AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence like the Forerunners should have, he decides to keep this a secret with the other Hierarchs and cover up the truth by exterminating humanity.

* KickTheDog: Does this to Johnson after [[spoiler:murdering Miranda Keyes]].

* IronicNickname: Seems to be a trait. Truth is a complete liar and psychopath, Mercy is a somewhat of a merciless bastard, and Regret didn't regret anything he did [[spoiler:even after he was dead]]. With Truth at least it was intentional, as he chose the name to remind of himself of his own lies and hypocrisy.

* AncestralWeapon: The gravity hammer "Fist of Rukt".

* BullfightBoss: Trying to use anything other than hit and run tactics will get you smashed by his gravity hammer.

* DropTheHammer: [[ArtificialGravity Gravity Hammers.]] Like the energy sword, it's based off of a traditional ceremonial weapon.

* DropTheHammer: He wields the "Fist of Rukt", a ceremonial hammer that can trace its origins back to before the Jiralhanae joined the Covenant and is wielded by Chieftain who can claim leadership of the entire race. Tartarus took it off his uncle's body and later had it outfitted to become a proper Gravity Hammer.

* DropTheHammer: He wields a Gravity Hammer in battle.

* DropTheHammer: He wields a personalized gravity hammer, but it's more like the normal variant than the Fist of Rukt.

* AncestralWeapon: The [[DropTheHammer Fist of Rukt]].

* DropTheHammer: He wields the ''"Oath of Fury"'', a gravity hammer that belonged to a Brute chieftain loyal to the Banished known as Odanostos.

[[caption-width-right:300: ''"For your destruction is the will of the gods. And I? I am their instrument!""'']]

[[caption-width-right:300: ''"You were weak... and gods must be strong."'']]

[[caption-width-right:300: ''"I shall light this holy ring... release its cleansing flame... and burn a path into the divine beyond!"'']]

* PragmaticVillainy: In Halo 2 he orders Keyes and Johnson separated into different Phantoms, not many villains have this foresight.

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Barring supplementally material with more gray Kig-Yar characters, there is ''very'' little to find virtuous or pleasant about Jackals as they are all proud pirates and marauders, where even Brutes can occasionally have honorable traits. In Halo 5 and Infinite, where one can understand their language, they’re willing to shoot their Grunt teammates out of annoyance, conspire to abandon or turn on their paymasters and many of their taunts has the, sadistically joyful to see humans die in pain or mock their fellow troops for being dumb enough to be killed. The sentiment is shared by the rest of the species they work with, who only keep the majority of disloyal and dispassionate Jackals around because they’re good warriors for their price tag if not their faithfulness.

** Banished era Grunts, while still the butt of ridicule among other species, are held in higher regard than their Covenant and Covenant Remnant slave predecessors by being an all-volunteer force who are fully capable of climbing the ranks for more esteemed ranks and offices, with the highest ranking Grunts being able to lead squads of Brutes, Grunts and Elites and join honor guard positions in league with some of the fiercest warriors if they're particularly skilled and dedicated to the Banished. In comparison, Covenant Grunts, barring incredible exceptions, very rarely received any authority other over species save for Grunts even lowlier than them.

** Banished Grunts are fond of giving particularly biting taunts and insults to the player and by extension the rest of humanity.

* NonIndicativeName: Humanity's callsign for them, 'Jackals' doesn’t do anything indicate their strictly avian/reptilian qualities.

** Energy shield gauntlets are standard among Jackals; it's their way of compensating for their relative frailness. The shield itself can be overcome with heavy weaponry, overwhelming/overcharged plasma fire, or melee, but it's usually easiest to just shoot the Jackal's firing hand, which causes it to flinch and expose the rest of its body to the player's fire.

* SuddenlyVoiced: After years of only speaking their unintelligible growls and clicking language, they were given coherent and translated voices in Halo 5. They speak in a raspy, high-pitched and aggressive tone with [[YouNoTakeCandle broken english]] in contrast to the more fluid speech of other races. Their harsh voices are lampshaded by idle Elites who might be conversing with them.

* CommonTongue: While different species prefer to use their native languages, the Sangheili language dominants most aspects of the Covenant, since Elites were one of the two founding species and run the military, and thus most species. As such, Covenant species need to know at least a little Sangheili to function under their dominance.

* RoyalInbreeding: The San'Shyuum of the Covenant are descended from the Reformists, a small faction of the greater San'Shyuum species. The resulting smaller gene pool increased the risk of recessive genetic disorders, and combined with their {{Lightworlder}} physiology resulted in the extreme physical frailty of modern San'Shyuum.

* LampshadeHanging: Aside from their usual MediumAwareness antics, Grunts in ''Infinite'' can be pierced with the grapple shot and allow Chief, a several ton SPARTAN, pull himself to the stunned little alien, with at least one potential dialogue that isn’t panic or crying noting the absurdity of this.
--->"Okay, there’s ''no'' way I weigh more than you."

* OldSoldier: The Grunt Mule enemies featured in ''Infinite'' have deeper voices, sound a fair bit older than other Grunts and tend to reference events from back in the Human-Covenant War (Battle of Installation 04, the destruction of Reach, various awakenings of The Flood, The Ark and various Halo rings, etc.). Funnily enough, they also reuse a bunch of [[GagDub IWHBYD dialogue]] that Grunts in the Bungie trilogy would shout, something that other Banished Grunts won't do.

* StoutStrength: Stronger than they look, judging by the heavy equipment they're sometimes seen carrying and their ability to disembowel humans with their bare hands.

* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: In theory, he started the war with humanity to prevent the Covenant from collapsing into civil war. However, it's ultimately revealed that he was also doing it to keep the San'Shyuum in power over the Covenant, not to mention that he was still willing to activate the Halo rings just to see if he ''would'' become a god as a result. In this regard, a civil war would be far less costly than destruction of all life in the galaxy.

* SmugSnake: He has his moments of cleverness, like withdrawing Regret's reinforcements and leaving him to be killed by the Master Chief, but ultimately he's not as smart as he thinks he is. The Covenant half of ''Halo 2'' is basically him sowing the seeds of his defeat in ''Halo 3'' by making two very bad choices: sparing Thel to be the Arbiter which exposes him to the truth of the Halos, and trying to rid the Elites in favor of the Brutes which gives humanity a much needed ally while also fragmenting the Covenant.

* WellIntentionedExtremist: His initial decision to exterminate humanity came about not out of malice or zealotry, but because he feared that if the truth ever came out about Humans being the inheritors of the Forerunners, the Covenant would collapse into civil war.

* GutturalGrowler: His voice is described as having a gravelly tone that rumbles through his mask.

* GutturalGrowler: Their vocalizations in combat has them roar and grunt in a reverberating, growling voice.

[[folder: In General]]

** The events of ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' and ''[[VideoGame/{{Halo 3}} 3]]'' have caused the Covenant to split apart into multiple warring factions. Easily the most powerful and noteworthy Covenant successor states are the (relatively) peaceable Elite-dominated Swords of Sanghelios, the hostile Brute-dominated Banished, and the hostile Elite-dominated Covenant remnants under the command of Jul 'Mdama. Note that because of how huge the Covenant was in their prime, even these successor states (and possibly others) easily qualify as galactic great powers.

[[folder: Special Warfare Group]]

[[folder: Honor Guard]]

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: The Prophet of Truth]]

->'''Homeworld: High Charity'''
->'''Birthdate: March 15, 2396'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/MichaelWincott (''{{VideoGame/Halo 2}}''), Creator/TerenceStamp (''{{VideoGame/Halo 3}}'')'''

--> '''Truth:''' Kill the Demon!

[[folder: The Prophet of Mercy]]

->'''Homeworld: High Charity'''
->'''Birthdate: August 22, 2332'''
->'''Debuted in: ''VideoGame/Halo2'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/HamiltonCamp'''

* IronicNickname: For the most part, Mercy is a merciless bastard, outright telling The Arbiter that his tasks will eventually kill him and vowing that none of humanity would be left behind after Truth was done. He did stick his neck out for Regret during ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', [[spoiler:not that it did much good for Regret]]. While all of the Hierarchs' names are ironic, Mercy's name is doubly ironic, as not only was he somewhat merciless, he was shown no mercy when he was left to die by Truth.

[[folder: The Prophet of Regret]]

->'''Homeworld: High Charity'''
->'''Birthdate: October 28, 2461'''
->'''Debuted in: ''VideoGame/Halo2'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/RobinAtkinDownes'''

* DiscOneFinalBoss: His forces make up all of the Chief's enemies in the first five human missions in ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'', and four of those involve chasing him down before he activates a Halo, but taking him out was only a small portion of the game's plot.

[[folder: The Prophet of Inner Conviction]]

->'''Homeworld: The Dreadnought'''
->'''Birthdate: 957 BCE'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloBrokenCircle'''''

[[folder: The Prophet of Clarity]]

->'''Homeworld: High Charity'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloBrokenCircle'''''

[[folder: The Prophet of Exquisite Devotion]]

->'''Homeworld: High Charity'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloBrokenCircle'''''

[[folder: The Minister of Discovery]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Wages of Sin]]'''''

[[folder: The Minister of Etiology]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[ComicBook/TheHaloGraphicNovel The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor]]'''''

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: Chieftain Tartarus]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: July 8, 2491'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/KevinMichaelRichardson'''

[[folder: Chieftain Cethegus]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Videogame/Halo3'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/JohnDiMaggio'''

[[folder: Chieftain Avitus]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: April 17, 2493'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Videogame/HaloWars'''''
->'''Voiced by: Creator/MarcWorden'''

[[folder: Chieftain Maccabeus]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: February 10, 2476'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloContactHarvest'''''

[[folder: Chieftain Hekabe]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: September 25, 2505'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloEnvoy'''''

[[folder: Chieftain Parabum]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss]]'''''

[[folder: Ceretus]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss]]'''''

[[folder: Facius]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss]]'''''

[[folder: Hammadus]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Stomping on the Heels of a Fuss]]'''''

[[folder: Chieftain Lydus]]

->'''Homeworld: Doisac'''
->'''Birthdate: March 2, 2478'''
->'''Debuted in: ''ComicBook/HaloEscalation'''''

[[folder: Atriox]]

[[folder: Decimus]]

[[folder: Escharum]]

[[folder: Warlord Pavium]]

[[folder: Voridus]]

[[folder: Tremonius]]

[[folder: In General]]

--> Every game you try to hide from me! You never do, it’s like I know where to look! Like I know you’re gonna go this way and that way and reload and shoot, but I find you! ''Always.''
--> Our death is at hand! ''(Double take, as if reading a script.)'' Oh wait, I’m meant to sound kind of sad.
--> '''(The sole intelligible line sleeping Grunts have in''' ''Reach'') It's funny, I dream in English…

---> Okay, there’s ''no'' way I weigh more than you.

* {{Omniglot}}: Capable of learning many languages quickly, though the Grunts encountered in [[VideoGame/HaloReach some]] [[VideoGame/{{Halo4}} games]] do not speak English.

[[folder: Special Operative Yayap]]

->'''Homeworld: Balaho'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloTheFlood'''''

-->'''Yayap:''' ''(sincerely)'' Th-thank you, Commander, but I don't deserve such an honor.

[[folder: Minor Zawaz]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'''''

[[folder: Deacon Dadab]]

->'''Homeworld: Balaho'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloContactHarvest'''''

[[folder: Ranger Stolt]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloShadowOfIntent'''''

[[folder: Flipyap]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''VideoGame/Halo3'''''
->'''Voiced by: Joseph Staten'''

[[folder: Dimkee Hotay]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'''''
->'''Voiced by: Joseph Staten'''

[[folder: Yapyap]]

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: Shipmistress Chur'R-Yar]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloContactHarvest'''''

[[folder: Reth]]

->'''Homeworld: Eayn'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloTheColeProtocol'''''

[[folder: Shipmaster Sav Fel]]

->'''Homeworld: Unknown'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloTheThursdayWar'''''

[[folder: Shipmistress Chol Von]]

->'''Homeworld: T'vao (Myur City)'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''Literature/HaloMortalDictata'''''

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: Colony]]

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: Vergil]]

[[folder: Lighter Than Some]]

[[folder: Prone to Drift]]

[[folder: Requires Adjustment]]

[[folder: Leaks Repaired]]

[[folder: Sometimes Sinks]]

[[folder: In General]]

[[folder: Hopalong]]

->'''Homeworld: Palamok'''
->'''Birthdate: Unknown'''
->'''Debuted in: ''[[Literature/HaloEvolutions Blunt Instruments]]'''''