Special Operations Commander

Special Operations Commander was a high Covenant Sangheili rank. Special Operations Commanders held authority over all Special Operations forces within a fleet.

Background
The title of Special Operations Commander was the highest known office attainable by a Sangheili in the Covenant Special Operations division. They held considerable political and military authority; a Special Operations Commander was placed in command of all the personnel and matériel of a fleet's Special Operations detachment and had the honor of speaking directly to the Hierarchs and relaying their messages to the High Council. It is unclear whether the position remains in service with any of the various Covenant remnants active as of 2558, with the possible exception of Arbiter Thel 'Vadam's Swords of Sanghelios.

Rtas 'Vadumee, Special Operations Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice, led his forces near Halo Installation 04 in September 2552, near Threshold in October, and at Installation 05 in early November. He later joined the Arbiter against the San'Shyuum and Jiralhanae (who had betrayed the entire Sangheili species) at the outbreak of the Great Schism. 'Vadumee (now 'Vadum) would come to humanity's aid during the Covenant's invasion of Earth, turning the tide of the campaign and contributing to the Covenant's destruction at the Ark in December 2552.

Production notes
This rank is often titled "Special Operations Commander" (or similar) in various works, though much of this comes down to an oft-repeated misconception on the part of the Halo fanbase and older pages on Halopedia. The term "SpecOps Commander" was used throughout the production of Halo 2 to refer to the character of Rtas 'Vadum, who had not been named at the time. This labelling can be seen in the game files for the character tag, and even in published media such as the Halo 2 strategy guide (a source with dubious canon authority) and the Halo Graphic Novel commentary for the story The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, in which author Lee Hammock refers to Rtas as "the SpecOps Commander". Crucially, the story itself does not refer to the rank of "SpecOps Commander" at any point, only referring to the characters of Rtas 'Vadum and Bero 'Kusovai as commander and sub-commander, respectively.

In-universe sources for the rank of "SpecOps Commander" were first published in the Halo Encyclopedia (2009 edition) and repeated in its 2011 reprint, which discuss Rtas 'Vadum as having "been reassigned to the position of SpecOps Commander". This is repeated in the Essential Visual Guide page on the character with mostly identical wording; neither of which discuss the rank as a particular title and can be easily interpreted as referring to a Special Operations Commander in the same way one may refer to an "SAS General". Given the many errors present throughout the 2009 encyclopedia, this source is generally considered untrustworthy should alternates be available.

More recent media published by 343 Industries has almost entirely neglected to mention the idea of the "Spec Ops Commander"; the first mention within more recent media occured in the 2016 novel Halo: Envoy during which Rojka 'Kasaan refers to Keza as "one of his special operations commanders" - with no capitalisation, suggesting the title is not intended as a proper noun, but instead a general descriptor. More recently, the Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition) discusses the ranks of commander and sub-commander as general ranks employed throughout the Covenant military in a similar fashion to Major or Minor,, while the book's page on Rtas 'Vadum explicitly states he "served as a Special Operations commandeer" - explicitly avoiding to call him a Special Operations Commander, presented as a proper noun. Given that the concept of a Sangheili Commander rank was fully established within Halo 4 (and its supporting media such as the Interactive Guide and Halo 4: The Essential Visual Guide), it would seem that the concept of a Special Operations Commander rank was based on a misreading of game data and ambiguous wording in early Halo media, and one 343 Industries has consciously gone out of their way to retcon/ ignore.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo Graphic Novel
 * The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor
 * Halo 3
 * Halo: Broken Circle
 * Halo 2: Anniversary
 * Halo: Shadow of Intent
 * Halo: Envoy