Forum:Covenant military restructuring

With new information from Halo: The Essential Visual Guide, backed up by fragments of info released in the past, I have come to the conclusion a major restructuring of our articles pertaining to the Covenant military is in order. I already posted a shorter version of this on the Covenant military talk page, but I thought it deserved more visibility.

Up until now, our articles have presented the Covenant military as a force not much unlike a contemporary human military (or the UNSC) in terms of organization; we have articles for a Covenant Army and Covenant Navy, two major branches that would supposedly deal with ground and space operations, respectively. However, this notion has also been entirely conjectural. No canon source has confirmed the Covenant as having separate military branches (at least branches similar to human ones), and with the new information available to us, we have sufficient evidence to entirely disprove this idea.

So, just how is the Covenant military actually organized? First, it seems that all Covenant forces serve under a particular ministry. Listed here are the ones that have relevance to military matters:
 * Ministry of Resolution - Most regular military fleets and operations.
 * Ministry of Fervent Intercession - Controls Zealots sent for relic-hunting missions.
 * Ministry of Preservation - Appears to send special operatives (such as Ripa 'Moramee) to deal with internal dissent and rebellions.
 * Ministry of Abnegation - Had oversight of the Ascetics, which to be fair seem more like an order of warrior monks than a military organization.

In addition to the ministerial oversight, perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Covenant military is that each fleet appears to be a self-contained military cell in itself. Fleets operate a number of "groups" that deal with different operations and supposedly answer to the fleet's command. This is supported by the organization information given in the Sangheili character descriptions this post on Bungie.net, as well as the fact the infoboxes in the Essential Visual Guide list "Branch" for human characters, but "Fleet" in its place for Covenant ones, implying that the fleet one is subordinate to bears a significant importance in the Covenant. The known groups include the following:


 * Occupational Forces (deals with ground operations; the closest equivalent to an army)
 * Special Warfare Group
 * Fleet Security
 * Special Operations

The operations of a single fleet are evidently directed by its Council of Masters, whose military head is apparently the Fleet Master, though fleets often appear to possess a political representative who commands considerable authority, such as a Minor Prophet, as well.

As for central command, we have no evidence the Covenant even possesses an organization like UNSC's HIGHCOM, though some command duties may be filled by an Imperial Admiral (or Imperial Commander, as the visual guide calls it). Though in essence a political organization, the role of high command for the regular military may be filled by the Ministry of Resolution. Maybe they have cut out the middle man and the ministry commands individual fleets directly? Furthermore, it seems reasonable that the ministry also manages and organizes fleets, such as creating new fleets or assigning ships to serve in an existing fleet.

It is also apparent that there is no divide between the ranking systems of land and space forces. For example, Sangheili General Ardo 'Moretumee captained the corvette Ardent Prayer, Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree led ground forces on Onyx, and Special Operations Commander Rtas 'Vadum became Shipmaster after capturing a vessel. In addition, Shipmaster appears to be a position that can be assumed by individuals of a number of ranks instead of being an actual rank, given the fact that Voro, a Major at the time, became one after killing his Shipmaster, and as mentioned above, a General serving as the commanding officer of a ship also bore the title of Shipmaster. This flexibility is obviously only true for the races higher up in the hierarchy who are able to command ships to begin with, such as Sangheili.

There's also an organization which was referred to as the "Sangheilian armed forces" in a post on B.net, though this is unlikely to be its official title given the lack of capitals. Obviously, the Sangheili military did not become independent from the Covenant military before the Great Schism, and as such has little relevance to the Covenant military in itself.

I think all this fits very naturally with what we know of the Covenant. As a longstanding spacefaring hyperpower, they have to rely entirely on ships to move their forces around their empire and protect their mobile capital. If they even had distinct branches from the start, they would've likely faded away when the full importance of space fleets as the backbone of the military forces became apparent. In addition, the Covenant military force consists of a multitude of different species, each with their own ranking systems and organizational units. Some of them do work together and form combined units, while others don't - the most apparent are the Jiralhanae and Sangheili, who don't even serve on the same ships. With forces as diverse as theirs, it would be hard to force them under rigidly defined branches like "army" and "navy". Giving each individual fleet its own chain of command allows for more flexibility in this regard.

In case no one has anything to say against this, there are major changes to be made. The articles Covenant Army and Covenant Navy should be merged with Covenant military and references to them should be removed from any pages that currently link to them (ranks, characters, etc.). In addition, the ministry and group each character or rank reports to should be mentioned in their infoboxes, provided they are known. I suppose both ministry and fleet would go to the "Affiliation" field and group to the "Branch" field, unless we add new fields for fleet, group and ministry into Covenant rank and character infoboxes. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 09:46, 31 August 2011 (EDT)

I think its a good idea, in The Essential Visual guide on the Banshee page it did note that the Halo: Reach-era Banshee and the Halo Trilogy Banshee are from different branches. However theres not a lot of canon sources to suggest that theres an "army" and "marines" like the UNSC, I think its a good idea and you've stated some good points here but theres isn't enough proof.

Bush Wookie Camper
 * Equally, BushWookieCamper, there's not enough proof to suggest that the Covenant possesses rigidly-defined Army and Navy branches. In fact, Jugus' suggestion is probably the most likely option. I don't believe Bungie or 343 put as much thought into the structure of the Covenant military as we're doing now, but based on the information we have, I would say that this is a thoroughly good, and the most likely, interpretation.--The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari 11:46, 31 August 2011 (EDT)


 * I fully agree with Jugus. I would like to add a few points that The Essential Visual Guide makes.


 * 1) The Zealots are a crusading, relic-hunting special forces group who report to the Ministry of Fervent Intercession; they are deployed in small commando teams to find and secure Forerunner artifacts, and they do not appear to hold any command authority. The Guide notes that Zealots wear gold-colored armor in Combat Evolved and Halo 2, but it does not say that Generals, Field Masters, Shipmasters, Fleet Masters, Field Marshals, Supreme Commanders, or even Imperial Admirals are part of the Zealot class, as we have always assumed. In other words, wearing gold armor does not make one a Zealot.


 * 2) "General" is clearly an alternate, probably UNSC-given designation for Field Masters. The Guide states, "Elite Generals are one of the highest ranking military personnel employed by the Covenant among their groundside forces. They can both command and personally lead troops into battle." "[Generals]... command troops of hundreds or even thousands when the direct occupation of an enemy's territory is necessary." "Given the nature of a given military operation, generals can report directly to a field marshal or even a fleet's supreme commander." Field Marshals - note that is is spelled correctly, with one "l" - may be higher-ranking Generals, though the Guide makes no indication of this; Field Marshal is more likely a distinct rank.


 * 3) Like Jugus said, there is no real distinction between the Covenant's ground and naval forces, which explains why Ardo 'Moretumee, despite holding the rank of General, served as a Shipmaster. "Shipmaster" and "Fleet Master" are titles, not actual ranks. Voro 'Mantakree took the position of Shipmaster while he was only a Major. This also explains why Rtas 'Vadum holds the position of Shipmaster - though, in effect he is really a Fleet Master - while he holds the rank of Special Operations Commander. It also explains why the Shipmaster from The Return - who, like Rtas, is also essentially a Fleet Master - appears to hold the rank of Ultra. Supreme Commander and Imperial Admiral probably encompass both rank and title; it is unlikely that any Sangheili ranked lower than General would not be allowed to hold such a high position. --Courage never dies. 18:50, 31 August 2011 (EDT)
 * While we're talking about it, may I suggest that we 1) Completely reconsider our Covenant species rank tables based on this forum, and 2) Remove said rank tables from the species articles and put them into the Covenant military article (the current system implies that every Sangheili, every Jiralhane, every Unggoy, every Kig-yar, etc., serves in the Covenant military, which is ridiculous).--The All-knowing Sith&#39;ari 09:45, 1 September 2011 (EDT)
 * Somewhat related... I took the initiative of updating the Covenant military rank structure by replacing the old Covenant Rank Infobox with the more customisable and standardised Unit Infobox. The new infobox is stylised like the ones in the Visual Guide. — subtank  13:29, 1 September 2011 (EDT)
 * The new template's nice, though I guess a separate field for "equipment" and "armament" might be more handy, since the "armament" field appears to become pretty massive every time with all the armor, equipment and weapon information dumped into it. In addition, fields for "ministry" and "group" might be a good thing to have, given the fact the Essential Visual Guide doesn't apply the term "branch" for Covenant units in most cases.


 * As for Zealots, I agree a complete overhaul of that article is in order - right now, it claims all Shipmasters, Fleet Masters or Field Masters are Zealots. I suppose the idea that all gold-armored Sangheili are Zealots came from Uprising in Halo 2 where a gold Elite is identified as one ("A Zealot? So much for a stealthy advance."). Come to think of it, it doesn't seem like the Zealot is in a position of command there - the other Elite merely makes a sardonic remark about his arrival. In addition, the Zealots' newly-defined role was already foreshadowed in The Cole Protocol, where Thel led a team of Zealots on special missions, such as retrieving NAV data from a UNSC ship. I'm not absolutely sure if Thel himself was identified as a Zealot in the novel, though his team was. If Thel was a Zealot, then we know they can serve in command roles.


 * It seems Field Marshals may be Zealots, given the fact one led a Zealot team in Reach. Since the Zealots are primarily artifact-hunting special forces, I'm not exactly sure what a Field Marshal would be doing there, though I suppose it could be that Field Marshals are a special type of Zealot that have command authority over both their Zealot teams and regular ground forces.


 * And yes, I completely agree about the rank tables. We could have a short summary of each species' military ranks (and civilian titles) in their respective articles, but the complete tables and descriptions should go to the Covenant military page, though I'm not sure if they'd clutter the page up too much. --Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 15:43, 1 September 2011 (EDT)
 * About the template, do note it's no longer exclusive for the Covenant ranks/titles; this rank infobox could be used for the Forerunners and those outside the Covenant system, presuming that those information would be released in the near future. I've added a field for "equipment" under "armament", per feedback. Additionally, I've added "ministry" field which should be exclusive for Covenant ranks. However, "branch" is left unchanged; the reason why the field is referred as "branch" is simply to avoid confusion for those not having access to the visual guide. Branch, like the Covenant term 'group', is simply another word for military organisation after all. Do note that you can always alter the title for "branch" as indicated in the infobox/template, hence the "more customisable". :) — subtank  13:18, 3 September 2011 (EDT)

A little update: It seems I was wrong about the Covenant not identifying their space forces as a "navy". In the very post I cited earlier, two references are made to a "Covenant Navy":

"Shortly after receiving his first post within the Covenant Navy he was offered a place on the..."

and later:

"...to become one of their liaisons within the Navy."

I still have my doubts about them having separate army and navy branches, however, given the reasons detailed above. I guess it could be that "Navy" in their case is synonymous with their military forces as a whole, and that all troops, ground forces included, are part of the navy. As said earlier, their entire military seems to revolve around fleets, so "Covenant Navy" might as well be the most fitting human term for their primary military forces.--Jugus (Talk  | Contribs ) 08:56, 5 October 2011 (EDT)