Extract from A Popular History of the Covenant War

By Antus Kamparian

…and so, the Battle of Etzik-Las ultimately resulted in no real gain for either side. The Coreward Front was becoming more like the Central Front, which is to say that the lines were becoming more entrenched and that offensives were increasingly unlikely to meet with meaningful success. The divisions of the Turian Hierarchy and Salarian Union took a grim satisfaction in knowing that at least the Covenant's momentum was now entirely depleted, and that the myth of Covenant naval invincibility could now be dispensed with once and for all.

The Rimward Front, which bordered the Asari Republics, continued to see dramatic swings which never seemed to end in lasting gains for either side. The quality of Asari divisions was wildly mixed. Asari gerontocratic cultural peculiarities had served them poorly as their military expanded. Those with records of prior service were highly preferred as candidates for commission and promotion, but no distinction was made between those who had left military service recently and those who had left military service centuries ago, producing an officer class riddled with Asari whose assumptions were hundreds of years out of date. Biotically adept Asari huntress companies did continue to be pound-for-pound the best light infantry in the war, but this could only do so much good in the wider atmosphere of disfunction.

The Rimward Front was also characterized by the widespread employment of mercenaries by both the Citadel and the Covenant. These Krogan clans, Batarian cartel-kin, and Kig-Yar privateers were often happy to change sides on a whim, which added to the pervasive chaos.

The morale of the Asari, Turian, and Salarian home fronts continued to be tolerably good; and Councilors Dhasura, Hatavius, and Rushim continued to all be well-regarded. Public opinion among the Elcor and Volus continued to be in favor of continued support for the Citadel but in opposition to any escalated participation.

Public opinion in the Illuminated Primacy continued to be virtually impossible for outsiders to read or understand. By this time almost no Hanar advocated for neutrality, much less joining with the Covenant, but the Hanar had still reached no consensus on what to do with the now-considerable navy they had begun building when the war broke out sixteen years earlier. The government of the Illuminated Primacy was paralyzed as factions argued whether to place the navy under the overall command of the Turian Hierarchy (this would have been the simplest and best idea), to recruit an army of presumably Hanar infantry to fight alongside the navy (this would have been a terrible idea), or to build an army of synthetic infantry firstly modeled on old Quarian designs and secondly given over to the eccentric refashioning of Huragok defectors (this would have been highly illegal and insane).

The most dramatic development within the societies of the Citadel member states was, of course, the long-anticipated revolution on Khar'shan. A full examination of the revolution would be well beyond the scope of this work, but it should be stressed that most contemporary observers were simply surprised that it didn't happen sooner. When the war began Terminus Batarian refugees had flooded into the Batarian Hegemony and demanded that the Hegemony avenge their loss. The Hegemony agreed, but then realized that it lacked the logistical capacity to do much of anything, despite having a larger standing army than the Asari Republics or the Salarian Union at the time. This belated epiphany badly damaged the prestige of the government, and pressure for reform mounted. The Hegemony instituted new taxes which it said were for those troopships which it really should have already had, then built no new troopships, then built new prisons instead. Several planetary governments declared secession from the Hegemony, touching off the "Years of Heat," which finally ended with the revolution and the rise to power of Colonel Bassavi. As Colonel Bassavi claimed to be for meritocratic reform and Batarian participation in the Covenant War, the other Citadel governments looked on him with cautious favor.

Some Krogan clans of the Demilitarized Zone continued to supply the war effort with valuable auxiliary forces. Most continued to respond to all diplomatic overture with taunts and claims that if it weren't for the Genophage the Krogan would have wiped the floor with the Covenant by themselves within a week.

So much for our side of the battlefronts. On the other, there was a growing consciousness among the Jiralhanae gendarmerie that the war had now bled the Sangheili to the point that the Jiralhanae caste had comparable manpower and resources to its traditional rivals. Great Chieftain Argurus petitioned for a Jiralhanae-led offensive which would have charged the Coreward Front and driven straight for the Citadel. The Terminus Exarch rebuffed Argurus in no uncertain terms. Argurus appealed the decision to the Hierarchs on High Charity, but never received any response.

The Sangheili military leadership adopted the posture that Jiralhanae discontent was beneath their notice. Higher on their list of concerns was finding yet another replacement for the ceremonial position of Arbiter, the latest Arbiter having been killed by an STG hit squad. A suitably impressive but "disgraced" warrior was soon found: Dras Natakueliti. Natakueliti, who killed his own majordomo for reasons that have never been established with any certainty, was sent to High Charity, ritually tortured, and made the sacramental symbol of the Covenant armed forces. Natakueliti was the sixth and final Arbiter active during the war, and some label him the finest soldier the war produced (as a patriotic Turian I do not).

The San'Shyuum grew less and less able to work around their Relay Dissension. The Prophet of Diligence grew more confident in asserting not only that the mass effect relays were created by the mythical "Reapers," but in asserting the logical follow-through, that the Covenant's duty was to destroy the relays. The Prophet of Sagacity's condemnations of this line of thought, and tacitly of his colleague, became more strident. The Prophet of Intrepidity kept his stance malleable and would not fully throw his support behind either party, compelling the other two Hierarchs to shower him with gifts and political concessions. The gridlock on High Charity effectively left the Terminus Exarch as the political leader of the Covenant's war effort, a role the well-meaning fool was simply not cut out for.

Such was the state of the known galaxy immediately before unrest in the occupied Terminus Systems was catalyzed by the unlikely partnership of Deacon Babvus Babquit and Warlord Dardoll Mellet…