Kanto'Boreft
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Kanto'Boreft, the Minister of Aretalogy, was an influential San'Shyuum politician in the Covenant. He was notably a member of the Governors of Contrition, a cult that believed in an extreme form of the Covenant religion that, among other things, believed the Flood to be a holy creation of the Forerunners and as such something to be cherished. Boreft was exiled from High Charity for his beliefs after the Flood outbreak on Installation 04 in September 2552 and stationed in exile to watch over the abandoned world of Atropos. In 2556, Kanto'Boreft's beliefs were brought to bear when a spacecraft carrying the Flood escaping from an ongoing outbreak elsewhere crash-landed on Atropos. For the next three-and-a-half years he deliberately fed victims to the small Flood outbreak on the world, until he was eventually infected and assimilated himself.[1]
Biography[edit]
Covenant service[edit]
During the era of the Covenant, Kanto'Boreft, already the Minister of Aretalogy, visited the lower districts of High Charity, whereupon he encountered a young Sangheili craftsman, Atun 'Etaree. He took from 'Etaree an arum the Sangheili had just finished constructing, with the promise that if he was unable to solve the puzzle by the next day, he would return and lift Atun out of the lower districts to live in his estate - and that he would "tell [Atun] a story". This promise was fulfilled, and Atun became a follower of the minister, even to the Sangheili's own confusion as to what Kanto saw in him.[1]
The minister was also noteworthy as a member of the Governors of Contrition, a radical organisation that believed all Forerunner creations were sacrosanct. The Governors had been tolerated in the Covenant as they did not harm others, but an ideological split occurred after the outbreak of the Flood during the Battle of Installation 04. The Governors believed the Flood to be a Forerunner creation and thus, by extension, also worthy of protecting, and after Installation 04's destruction, were deemed too dangerous to remain in positions of power. As such, the Governors were forcibly split up and exiled across the empire, with Kanto'Boreft placed in charge of the Ninth Watchtower of August Attendance orbiting the planet Atropos. Ironically (and much to the minister's dismay), this meant that neither he nor his fellows were present at High Charity when the city-station was assimilated by the Flood weeks later - which robbed the minister of his ascendance.[1]
Exile on Atropos[edit]
Throughout the Great Schism and postwar era between 2552 and 2556, Kanto'Boreft continued to man his station at the Ninth Watchtower, never renouncing his faith and continuing to send off regular reports on the station's upkeep and the inactivity of Atropos, even as he questioned whether they were actually being received or read by anyone. In this time, the minister claimed that his guiding force was his mission to convert and shepherd his followers aboard the station.[1]
In October 2556, Atropos was visited by a slipspace-capable craft for the first time in years: a Condor dropship of the United Nations Space Command fleeing a Flood outbreak in the Marcey system. The dropship had been hijacked by the Flood and managed to escape the site of the outbreak before it could be destroyed by a nuclear weapons bombardment by UNSC Saturn, arriving at Atropos and crashing on the world below. With the arrival of the parasite on the planet, the minister prepared a new plan, which would see himself and his flock assimilated by the parasite, though this planning was interrupted by the chance discovery of a small human population on the planet below. The humans were descendants of outlaws and pirates who had been marooned on Atropos decades before the Human-Covenant War, and thus had no hostile predisposition to the minister or his followers. Instead, the minister elected to join the humans on the ground, and ordered the disassembly of the Ninth Watchtower in orbit, with the Citadel structure at its core disassembled and reassembled as a base on the ground from which he could cultivate a new Flood outbreak. The Condor that had crashed on Atropos only contained a few badly-mangled bodies, not enough to kickstart a Flood infection alone, and thus required careful cultivation by the minister to reforge into a form which could be used to eventually spread the infection across the planet.[1]
For the next three years, the humans and Kanto'Boreft's followers met in an annual tradition known as the Festival of Joyous Partition, during which the two sides traded stories and artefacts of their parent cultures. Once a month, Kanto'Boreft would select a "Chosen" from among his followers (who numbered at least a hundred, with multiple Shadow and Umbra transports) and sacrifice them to the Flood interred within the Citadel. As the Chosen entered the Citadel, they would be regailed by stories read aloud by the minister before succumbing to the Flood themselves. Around April 2560, the Chosen was Atun 'Etaree, whose death at the hands of the Flood was the catalyst for the parasite to break out of the Citadel and begin spreading across the planet, infecting all life on the planet including Kanto'Boreft himself.[1]
As the minister succumbed to the spreading infection, he wrote his final dying words to reflect upon his actions, where he had the realisation that for him, the Flood represented a unity of all beings and a final evolution for all life - and something which he willingly gave himself to.[1]
Personality and traits[edit]
Kanto'Boreft was a charismatic individual, and noted by Atun 'Etaralee to look relatively young for a San'Shyuum. Despite this, he had the aura of having the wisdom of someone much older: these characteristics combined allowed him to amass several hundred followers who would follow him even into the arms of the Flood. His faith was such that he had even blinded himself performing a ritual which he claimed aligned himself with higher cosmic spheres: as a result his eyes were dark, with mottled grey-white spots.[1]
As was customary for San'Shyuum, Kanto'Boreft walked with the aid of an anti-gravity belt.[1]
Trivia[edit]
Aretalogy is defined as a narrative, poem, or text that describes a divine figure's deeds, and are often used to represent the essential creed and belief of a religious or philosophical movement.[2]
List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: Ascension on Atropos (First appearance)
