True Covenant

"Creatures of the Covenant. I speak to you now, not as a Hierarch, or a warrior, or a leader. Today, I am but one of you. Today, Hallowed Sanctum has fallen. Not to some external enemy - not to the vindictiveness of the Sangheili, or the retribution of the humans, but to a foe that we invited into our worlds and our fleets - the Council lies dead or captured, your fleet masters chained or willing accomplices. They will ask you to give your loyalty to them, to pledge your allegiance to a puppet leader. I ask you to deny them victory. I ask you to join me, join my warriors, to fight - for the Covenant! For the Gods! For the Great Journey! I ask that you fight!"

- Hierarch of Protestation, Declaration of Opposition, 2563, one year before his death

The attack of the Governors of Contrition was swift, and came totally by surprise. During his tenure as Hierarch, the Prophet of Objection had done much to restore what was left of the Covenant to its former glory - the elevation of the Yanme'e into the warrior caste, the removal of Grunts from frontline combat roles, inproving conditions for Huragok workers, and the reformation of the High Council to include Yanme'e Queens, Jiralhanae Chieftains, a few Kig-Yar leaders, as well as the few Prophets that remained, all helping to maintain the New Covenant's unity. Unfortunately, several actions taken by Objection would spell the doom of his regime - the decision to offer amnesty to recalcitrant Sangheili being the most important. The Governors used their opportunity well, infiltrating the highest orders of the New Covenant at Hallowed Sanctum, before striking with overwhelming force and pinpoint accuracy - killing many Queens and Chieftains in the opening hours, capturing many of the surviving Prophets, and executing Objection and setting up the Prophet of Piety as a puppet Hierarch. Using a Sangheili Armed Forces diplomatic taskforce as a scapegoat, the Governors took immediate and nearly total control of the New Covenant, using its fleets and legions to set their own plans into motion.

Their control was not total, however. Absent from Hallowed Sanctum, Objection's fellow Hierarchs, the Prophets of Protestation and Devotion, would form a core of loyal legions and fleets, using Victorious Avowal as their central command, initiating a civil war within the New Covenant for control, establishing a Covenant-in-exile. Piety was forced to declare Protestation and Devotion to be traitors to the Great Journey, labelling them as blasphemers and heretics, the Governors commanding their warriors to attack Victorious Avowal, the bastion of their remaining power, hoping to crush the resistance. Though Protestation would be killed during the battle, Devotion would escape unharmed, forging an alliance between his forces, now taking the name "True Covenant", and the Sangheili Armed Forces to depose Piety and defeat the Governors before they could accomplish their goals. Fighting alongside human, Sangheili and even Unggoy forces, the True Covenant would win many battles, eventually retaking Victorious Avowal and Hallowed Sanctum alongside other allied forces, and would spend much of the subsequend years rebuilding the most devastating blow to its authority since the Schism.