Reformists

The Reformists, also known as the Reformers, were a faction of San'Shyuum who opposed the Stoics, wishing to infiltrate and study the Forerunner Dreadnought in order to advance their species and better understand their gods. These differences ultimately culminated in the War of Wills, which saw the Reformists flee Janjur Qom aboard the Dreadnought.

Origin
The San'Shyuum homeworld of Janjur Qom was populated with many powerful Forerunner relics, leading the native population to form a religion around the makers of these artifacts. The San'Shyuum believed that the Forerunners had achieved divinity via the activation of Halo, which they called the Sacred Rings. However, these beliefs were based on fundamental mistranslations of artifacts, skewing the San'Shyuum's decisions for millennia to come. By far the most influential of all the Forerunner relics on Janjur Qom was the Anodyne Spirit, a keyship which had crash-landed in the Great Apothtea sea.

Referred to as the "Dreadnought" by the San'Shyuum, this majestic vessel would become the driving factor in the species' fragmentation. Some San'Shyuum—the Reformists—thought that they should enter the keyship and explore its interior to better understand their gods, believing that their artifacts had be left behind specifically for them to activate, explore, and even dismantle, if necessary. Yet, many San'Shyuum—called the Stoics—believed that Forerunner artifacts should only be deferentially observed, and that entering the Dreadnought would be tantamount to the desecration of a holy site. While the debate started out entirely political and philosophical, it devolved into violence as more and more San'Shyuum left the Stoics to join the Reformists, leading the Stoic leaders to suppress their opposition via imprisonment and execution.

War of Wills
The violence came to a head in 2200 BCE and ignited a long, bloody conflict known as the War of Wills. During the civil war, the Reformists established a stronghold in the fortress of Granduin in the Zelfiss region. However, the fortress was undermined by Stoic forces, causing it to fall into the nearby Great Apothtea sea. During the climax of the San'Shyuum civil war, around one thousand Reformists stormed the Dreadnought and began to occupy it, while preparing to use the vessel to leave Janjur Qom. The Reformists occasionally raided Stoic territory to collect and stock the ship with plants, wood, seeds, and other goods from the planet.

At the end of the century-long conflict, one thousand heavily-armed Reformists infiltrated the Dreadnought, barricading themselves inside. The Stoics' unwillingness to damage the holy artifact resulted in a protracted standoff. To the Stoics' immense surprise, the Reformists eventually managed to ignite the Dreadnought's engines and escape Janjur Qom, blasting a huge chunk out of the planet in the process. Refusing to fire on the vessel, the Stoics grudgingly allowed the Reformists to leave. While Reformists ultimately won the conflict, it came with a heavy price; they were left with only around one thousand individuals, and were forced to selectively mate to prevent inbreeding. The Roll of Celibates was established in an effort to maintain genetic diversity between the San'Shyuum and to eliminate unwanted genes.

Soon after fleeing Janjur Qom, the Reformists used the Dreadnought to investigate orbital installations around Salosur Qom, a neighboring world in their home system of Qom Yaekesh. Within these facilities, the Reformists discovered provisions, intriguing artificial creatures known as Huragok, and a powerful Cartographer. When this machine fed information into the Dreadnought's own systems, it activated a device called a Luminary, a system that could guide the Reformists to other worlds stocked with Forerunner relics. Gathering many of the Huragok onto the Dreadnought, the Reformists then followed the Luminary's signal away from their star system and into the vast galaxy.

War of Beginnings
The Reformists would later go on to encounter the ancient Sangheili in 938 BCE. Landing on the Sangheili frontier colony world of Ulgethon, the Reformists sent a large delegation to explain that they worshipped the Forerunners. However, the Sangheili, like the Stoics, deemed the use of Forerunner technology as heretical. Arbiter Vema 'Togad met with the delegation and decapitated all of the San'Shyuum. Outraged, the Reformists fled into space, sparking the War of Beginnings. The Reformists were outnumbered by the Sangheili, but the Sangheili possessed inferior technology. This situation led to a stalemate between the two species. Eventually, realizing that both species' extinction was a possible outcome, the Writ of Union was signed between the San'Shyuum Reformists and the Sangheili and a religious empire known as the Covenant was established.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Contact Harvest
 * Halo: Broken Circle
 * Halo 2: Anniversary
 * Terminals
 * Halo Mythos
 * Halo: Shadows of Reach
 * Sacrifice