User:XW3 AR3 L3GION/Operation: LEGACY

"And we fled. Ordered by our mighty Arbiter to take what we could and leave our homes across the great expanse of Covenant territory; systems and stars that we slaved to find and claim in the names of our false gods. We fled with all our females and offspring behind a line drawn through space. But our noble Arbiter had the gift of foresight. If our stretched out Sangheili had been caught in the chaos the Jiralhanae caused amongst themselves, they would not exist today."

- Unknown Sangheili War Lord

To humans, Operation: LEFT BEHIND, otherwise known to the Sangheili as the Disgraceful Retreat is a military operation where upon returning to Sanghelios, Arbiter Thel 'Vadam ordered the entire retreat of any Sangheili-controlled fleets and the evacuation of Sangheili planets to behind the Ra'am Line, a highly defended buffer zone that shielded the Sangheili population against the Covenant Civil War. Many Sangheili felt disgusted believing that while separated, the Sangheili forces would not be defeated by such a rag tag group of barbarians. However, they obeyed the word of the Arbiter, retreating back to Sanghelios collecting any Sangheili populations from planets they passed and destroying or salvaging any vital industries on the planet. Few ships were attacked and destroyed by rampaging Jiralhanae.

The second phase of the operation was to make sure that the Sangheili were protected and fed while vast refugee camps were set up across planets inside the Sangheili's defensive sphere. The Sangheili believed - to a point of paranoia - that the Jiralhanae would agree to a armistice before using their combined forces to obliterate the Sangheili, this fear was heightened when a few Jiralhanae ships fleeing a recent battle accidentally stumbled into the Ra'am Line and were promptly destroyed. The Sangheili believed them to be a probing force for a much larger force and tripled their warship output within a four month period, although no invasion actually occurred.