Janjur Qom

Janjur Qom was the homeworld of the San'Shyuum.

Description
Because the San'Shyuum do not discuss their culture with other races, very little is known of Janjur Qom, other than that it has a slightly lower gravity than Earth. Janjur Qom was a water-rich planet. Its distance from its star put it in a temperate zone that only allowed Janjur Qom to have a narrow range of weather. Bony-winged animals known as rakscraja often dwelled in the vine-covered trees of the planet.

Prehistory
Following the surrender of the San'Shyuum in the human-Forerunner wars, Janjur Qom and another San'Shyuum-inhabited world in its system were placed under a quarantine shield, monitored by the Forerunner warship Deep Reverence. The San'Shyuum were not allowed to leave the system, but were permitted to travel between Janjur Qom and their other world.

Late into the Forerunner-Flood war, the Librarian came to Janjur Qom to collect specimens of the San'Shyuum for preservation on the Ark. The San'Shyuum, terrified by the thought of an impending cataclysm, attempted to rise up against the Forerunner defenses surrounding their system. They were unsuccessful, and later the entire planet was sterilized in a cruel act of punishment by one of the Master Builder's Halo installations. The San'Shyuum species was preserved, however, and would be reseeded on their planet after the Array was fired at the conclusion of the war. Their population was five hundred million after the activation of the Halo Array.

Post-Halo Array
With their former relationship with the Forerunners all but forgotten, the San'Shyuum came to regard the Forerunners as gods, and worshiped their technology as gifts left behind for other races. The greatest of these relics was the Dreadnought, a fully functional keyship, possibly the last in the galaxy. Because of the presence of easily accessible Forerunner relics on the planet, the San'Shyuum advanced faster than most of the other races in the galaxy. However, the San'Shyuum came to regard the Dreadnought as too holy to explore in depth.

This policy was maintained until 2200 BCE, when a group of San'Shyuum known as the Reformists demanded they be given access to the Dreadnought. This was anathema to the Stoics who maintained the belief of reverence. For the next one hundred years, the San'Shyuum engaged in internal conflict. The war ended in 2100 BCE, when one thousand Reformists barricaded themselves in the Dreadnought. As the Stoics were unwilling to destroy the object they revered, they were indecisive over what to do. This allowed the Reformers to activate the Dreadnought and leave, taking a huge chunk of the planet with them. The Stoics cursed the Reformists to exile, never to return. The Reformists would later go on to be ancestors of those who fought with the Sangheili and become the first Prophets of the Covenant.

While it is unknown if the Prophets ever returned to their homeworld, they did keep tabs on it, and learned that Janjur Qom was destroyed when its star 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.

Locations

 * Crellum
 * Grotto of the Great Transition
 * Reskolah

Trivia
The Bestarium gives the implication the San'Shyuum may have been lying about the destruction of their homeworld, possibly due to lingering distrust of the Sangheili. However, it also notes that such a conspiracy would be difficult to maintain for thousands of years.

List of appearances

 * Halo 3
 * Bestiarum
 * Halo: Contact Harvest
 * Halo: Cryptum
 * Halo: Primordium
 * Halo: Broken Circle