Te

Te is a planet orbiting the star Svir. It is the homeworld of the Lekgolo species.

Background
Te is a high-gravity terrestrial planet with an atmosphere primarily composed of nitrogen, helium, and methane. It is orbited by 25 natural satellites, only two of which, Uhtua and Rantu, are known to be named. It has a temperature range of -20 C to 95 C (-4F to 203F) and is a quite large, rocky planet. This planet is known to have very high concentrations of rare metals in its crust, many of which serve as food for the Lekgolo worms.

Although they had reached Tier 3 on the Forerunner technological advancement scale, the Lekgolo's development of space travel was severely hampered by Te's high gravity. Despite this impediment, the Lekgolo had, a number of millennia before their contact with the Covenant, colonized several Forerunner installations in orbit over a gas giant near the Urs system. Many of these Lekgolo fed on the Forerunner alloys and had eventually demolished the constructs almost completely. During the conflict which followed the Covenant's first contact with the populations over the gas giant, the Sangheili also confronted the Lekgolo on the surface of Te. The environment of the planet, specifically its high gravity, worked to the overwhelming advantage of the native Lekgolo. In the end, the Lekgolo were incorporated into the Covenant as a client race, with the Lekgolo's own interest in this arrangement being largely based on their access to the Covenant's advanced spacefaring technology.

Trivia

 * Te likely has the greatest population of any Covenant world, if each individual Lekgolo worm is considered a separate being.
 * In the Chinese philosophy of Daoism, "Te" is used to represent the concept of virtue or potentiality. In Confucianism it represents the virtue of internal goodness and proper behavior toward others.