Sharquoi

"I suspect we are forcing the Humans into a tighter arena than they care to fight in—soon we may be able to use the Sharquoi."

- A cryptic mention of the Sharquoi shortly before the Battle of Earth

The Sharquoi are a race of powerful creatures that were biomechanically altered by the Forerunners to fight the Flood. While the Sharquoi are little more than animals on their own, the Forerunners implanted them with devices enabling them to be mentally controlled en masse by a single individual via a central neural interface. Left in stasis following the Forerunner-Flood war, a number of Sharquoi were later found by the Covenant, but were rarely used in combat as the Covenant lacked effective means of controlling them.

Origins
While evidently of natural origin, the Sharquoi were modified by the Forerunners to serve as shock troops against the Flood as they were found to have a curious resiliency against the parasite.

The Covenant
Near the end of the Human-Covenant War, a Sangheili expressed to his commander that humanity's corralling following the Fall of Reach might allow the Sharquoi to be deployed soon.

Post-war
Many former Covenant member believed the Sharquoi's status after the war was unknown.

Behind the scenes


The Drinol, as it was originally known was planned to be in the third-person shooter version of Halo prior to Bungie's migration to the Xbox market. The Drinol was essentially a recreation of the Drinniol from Marathon, an enemy unit referred by the eponymous ship's crew as Hulks. The Drinol was a close match to the Drinniol in both appearance and combat role. Though modeled and animated during the development of Halo, the Drinol was cut from the game. It was later planned to be included in Halo 2 as the Sharquoi, but was eventually removed from the game once again.

The Sharquoi are mentioned briefly in Conversations from the Universe, a pamphlet included with the Halo 2 Limited Edition. This remained as the sole reference to the Sharquoi in Halo canon until the 2017 novel Halo: Envoy, which elaborates on the creatures' nature. The novel even makes clear references to the early placeholder and concept art for the creatures (seen below), including a mural featured in the early cinematic cutscenes for Halo 2.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Conversations from the Universe
 * Halo: Envoy