Battle for Sanghelios

This article is based on canon information, but the article's title is conjectural and/or uses descriptions as the title, as there is currently no official name for the subject.

Previous:	Operation: ATHENA
Concurrent:	Battle of Kamchatka Cortana Event Battle of Genesis
Next:	Subjugation of Sanghelios Subjugation of Earth
Battle for Sanghelios
Conflict:	Post-Covenant War conflicts Blooding Years Created uprising
Date:	Before or around October 17, 2558-October 27, 2558
Location:	Sanghelios, Urs system
Outcome:	Swords of Sanghelios victory Jul 'Mdama's forces routed and considered functionally destroyed. Fireteam Osiris leaves in a Guardian.
Details Belligerents Swords of Sanghelios UNSC Jul 'Mdama's Covenant Created Commanders Arbiter Thel 'Vadam Spartan Jameson Locke General Kitun 'Arach† Cortana Warden Eternal Strength Numerous Sangheili Warships Swords of Sanghelios ground and air forces Fireteam Osiris Numerous Sangheili Warships Covenant ground and air forces Two Guardians Promethean ground and air forces Casualties Moderate Near total Heavy

The battle for Sanghelios was a major global conflict fought in late 2558 on and around the Sangheili homeworld of Sanghelios, and a major engagement of the Blooding Years; the civil war between various Sangheili warlords resulting from the collapse of the Covenant empire in 2552. The conflict was primarily fought between the defending Swords of Sanghelios and a remnant faction of the Covenant led by the warlord Jul 'Mdama, with both sides seeking to take control of the planet. The engagement abruptly ended on October 27, 2558, with the onset of the Created uprising forcing the end of hostilities despite the numerous defeats suffered by Jul 'Mdama's forces.

Background

After the collapse of the Covenant and the end of the Human-Covenant War in 2552, Sanghelios fell into a series of bloody internecine conflicts fought between the various warlords and kaidons across the planet. By-and-large, the victor of these conflicts were the Swords of Sanghelios, an alliance of keeps united under the Arbiter Thel 'Vadam, which came to rule the majority of the planet and acted as the world's de-facto government. While these civil wars, which came to be known as the Blooding Years, spilled off into greater Sangheili space, the Swords maintained their rule on Sanghelios, coming to act as defenders of lesser keeps. The Swords of Sanghelios were beset against numerous remnant warlords in this time, though their greatest rival was a resurgent Covenant led by Jul 'Mdama based out of the colony world of Hesduros. Although the Hesdurons who made up Jul's power base were largely still-aherent to the Covenant religion, Jul himself remained atheistic in nature, instead motivated by the desire to exterminate his enemies (notably humanity) and to keep Sanghelios "pure". These factors would ultimately drive Jul to search for various superweapons of Forerunner origin, and lay the groundwork for his eventual attempt to take Sanghelios for himself.

Towards 2558, the situation on Sanghelios had begun to stabilise; the Swords of Sanghelios had managed to drive other rivals such as the Servants of the Abiding Truth offworld, and the deaths of influential commanders in Jul 'Mdama's camp (such as Gek 'Lhar) had caused Jul-aligned keeps on the world to fragment. This set the stage for the Swords of Sanghelios to begin their own offensive operations, on the one hand attempting to negotiate a peace between the Swords and one of the larger Jiralhanae master-packs, the Children of Oth Sonin, which could free up some Swords of Sanghelios forces from their ongoing war against the Brutes. On the other hand, they also began to conduct a concerted campaign against Jul 'Mdama, striking at his power base of Hesduros in the Aspero system with the goal of killing 'Mdama and destroying his Covenant for good. While they did fail in this objective, they were successful in devastating 'Mdama's infrastructure across Hesduros - forcing its abandonment and putting the warlord on the backfoot.

Jul's loss of Hesduros came on the back of a string of defeats inflicted against him by the UNSC, including the loss of Requiem in February 2558, an