War of Wills

The San 'Shyuum civil war was an internal conflict that arose when some of the San 'Shyuum began to believe that they should enter the Forerunner Dreadnought, a relic which crashed on their homeworld Janjur Qom long ago.

History
The conflict began in 2200 BCE, when a group of San 'Shyuum known as the Reformists demanded they be given access to the Forerunner Dreadnought present on their planet and learn from its technology, even though much of the population believed that the ship was a sacred artifact and should not be interfered with. The two sides fighting in this war were the Stoics, or the San 'Shyuum who refused to enter and desecrate the Dreadnought, and the Reformists, who wanted to develop new technologies by entering and studying the Dreadnought.

In 2100 BC, at the climax of the war, about a thousand Reformists broke into and commandeered the Dreadnought. The outraged Stoics were unable to take action, since even their fury toward the Reformists could not bring them to destroy the object of their reverence. The Reformists then took flight from the planet, breaking off a massive chunk of rock in doing so. This piece of rock would later become the foundation of High Charity, the Holy City of the Covenant.

Aftermath
Although the Reformists had achieved victory and left the Stoics (who sent out communication messages threatening that they would be damned for their impudence toward the gods) behind, they realized that they were doomed due to the small number that had joined their cause to control the Dreadnought. With an extremely small gene pool, they enacted strict controls around mating to prevent potentially disastrous inbreeding. While it is unknown if the San 'Shyuum ever returned to their homeworld, they did keep tabs on it, and learned that Janjur Qom was destroyed when its star allegedly collapsed upon itself in 648 BCE. After this, High Charity, a mobile planetoid made out of the chunk of rock and powered by the Dreadnought, became the new homeworld of the San 'Shyuum.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Contact Harvest