User:XW3 AR3 L3GION/Kig-Yar (L3GION)

"The Jackals may be superior marksmen, but you're got to watch out for those Skirmishers - they're just brutal."

- Anonymous UNSC serviceman

The Kig-Yar (Latin: Perosus latrunculus, translated to "Hateful Highwayman") is a species of saurian/avian from the moon Eayn which orbits the gas giant Chu'ot in the Y'Deio System. The Kig-Yar were once part of the Covenant Empire after a slow and painstaking war between the superior Sangheili-controlled fleets of the Covenant and the Kig-Yar's pirate resistance. However, the Kig-Yar gained their freedom during the Great Schism only to fall back into servitude for the highest bidder after the Kig-Yar government were on the edge of economic collapse. Typically, the Kig-Yar are portrayed as pirates and mercenaries and for the most of the time the assumption is right.

The Kig-Yar is actually two species: the Jackals and Skirmishers (named so by UNSC personnel) - two different sub-species of the same biologial family. Due to the isolated nature of their homeplanet, the Jackals developed on one of two main continents and spread amongst the small islands that littered their world, whilst the Skirmishers did not spread staying on the second continent. The Skirmishers lacked the outgoing exploration and pirate nature of the Jackals as their society had developed into nationalistic city-states.

History
At one time, the Jackal's culture was centered around sailing the high seas to the thousands of island nations, raiding their encampments, settlements of other clans and unarmed merchant ships. Exploring their world for new lands and tradeable goods, an well-known shipmistress discovered the Skirmishers who amazed by the Jackals technological prowess (which was still very low compared to other species at the same time), joined the ranks of the Jackals as frontline soldiers.

As the distances between the clans grew less, so too did the differences, and a united Kig-Yar race reached out to the stars in spacecrafts, beginning to populate small asteroids around Chu'ot. Some of these saw opportunity, and became pirates once more, raiding merchant ships. These were apparently the Kig-Yar's only effective response to the overwhelming Covenant military juggernaut when they arrived in their home-system in 1342. The war between the two factions apparently culminating around sieges of redoubts on the asteroids surrounding their world. Whilst the Sangheili could have easily glassed the asteroids, the Sangheili honour took over the most appropriate action and the Sangheili conducted boarding actions to face the united Kig-Yar face to face.

Eventually, in order to survive, they accepted the Letters of Marque: commissions from theMinistry of Tranquility to engage in the services of the Covenant, though often this was merely used as an excuse to continue raiding. The Kig-Yar spent much of this time preying on the ships of the Covenant's enemies, such as the humans. Though they theoretically stand as equals of the Unggoy, the Kig-Yar are actually in an elevated position, as most of the other races ignore the Unggoy, while the Kig-Yar are purposefully cruel to them to reassure themselves of their own superiority. This reached a boiling point when some Kig-Yar attempted to poison recreational narcotics the Unggoy enjoyed which would have left the Unggoy sterile, in retaliation for the Unggoy encroaching on their habitats. Although the Minister of Fortitude found evidence of this, the High Council failed to properly investigate, culminating in the Unggoy Rebellion.

During the Great Schism, the Kig-Yar gained their freedom by just abandoning the Covenant Empire, however, a united Kig-Yar government could not last under its own strength as many of the Kig-Yar were only interested in raiding each other for consumables. To prevent a economic collapse, the Kig-Yar hired themselves out to the Remnant factions as privateers and footsoldiers.