Jayli 'Heyam's Rambling

My Halo fixation is back. I haven't played most of the games or read most of the books, but I revived the fanfiction(s) I made when I was 9, retconned some stuff, and I'm going to ramble about them here.

WIP for now, but welcome for the ride.

I have three main angles of it: The Disquisitors, The Alpha Mark Spartans, and a Slice of Life story about Thel's personal life. I'm going to hold off about talking about the third one until I've read the more recent books, since I started all three of them back before 343i was big, so I made these headcanons before Thel's personal life was actually explored in canon.

The Disquisitors:

Following the fall of the Covenant, one renowned Fleetmaster, Hurai 'Mayamee, became disillusioned by the feeling of war. The Covenant had been used for years to blind the Sangheili, he realised, and now that they were free, he wondered what else had been hidden from them.

And so, he gathered a crew of military dropouts and curious adventurers, as well as his own grand nephew and niece, Awrel and Jayli, and set out to explore. The Disquisitors remain a neutral party, simply wandering the cosmos and gathering information, questioning traditions and cultural norms, and working to strengthen all of the known sapient species among the stars.

Reference Sheet: Here

The Alpha Mark Spartans:

Not every human supported the ORION project. One particular investor of the project became paranoid that ONI would end up using the Spartans against humans, to control and take over humanity. He broke away and funded his own mock project: The Alpha Mark Spartans. Trained up as hunters, rather than soldiers, and each designed to max out one specific trait rather than be Jack-of-All like the ONI Spartans, this man designed Spartan-killers.

Several issues occurred during the project. The first, was that their augmentation procedures were incredibly lethal, with a 95% death rate and 4% life with disability rate.

The second was that their training, while intense, was not run by any military personnel. While they are effective hunters and have deadly determination while hunting, they lack the poise and professionalism of a real soldier. Of course, this has its strengths as well, as it's hard to strategize against someone who doesn't appear to have a strategy.

The third, was that his training of them left them unclear on their purpose. While they are excellent at killing "evil Spartans", they failed to understand what he meant by "evil Spartans": He meant all Spartans, but they took it as him meaning specifically Spartans that have gone rogue.

While this was a failure to him, ONI realised the benefit of this: If they ever lost track of a Spartan, there was now a free clean-up crew available to fix the problem for them.

Now, every new Spartan receives a similar warning: "You better listen well, stay in line, and follow orders. Because, if you don't, the Mark A's will get you."

I'm currently replaying the games (almost finished 2), and just ordered every book that features a Sangheili's perspective.

Yes! Sangheili gestate for about 3 months. During that time period, they tend to get a bit bloated, and the muscles of their abdomens harden up. This can be felt through the female's skin, and they often refer to touching this as "feeling the eggs", although you can't actually feel the eggs through the skin. Their miscarriage ability is very sensitive (one of the reasons why their hatchrate is much lower than the human birthrate). Things like space-travel and high-stress can easily cause a miscarriage (the egg comes out before it's ready), so usually, pregnant females are not allowed in space or are heavily monitored.

When it is time to lay, they lay a clutch of 1-4 eggs. Each egg has a chance of being "dead" (no embryo). The more eggs there are in a clutch, the higher chance for any one to be dead. If a Sangheili lays more than 4, guaranteed that Egg 5+ is dead. (Another contributing factor to their hatchrate)

Because of how often they have dead eggs and miscarriages, they have many superstitions meant to avoid it. These include:

An egg will be more likely to live if he can smell that there are many females who will help raise him, so other females often use pheromone sprays to increase their pheromones when around the expectant mother.

Eggs can hear their mothers' heartsbeat, and making it pound too much will upset the egg and shatter its shell, so you must keep her from becoming too upset.

Despite the aforementioned one, she should be encouraged to watch combat sporting events. The egg will be strengthened by the smell of the warrior pheromones and warrior blood-spilling.

The female should greatly increase her protein-eating to ensure strong shell-creation.

Young boys should stay away from the expectant mother. The egg will smell them, think of them as competition, and be too scared to be laid.

Qikost is the goddess of mothers and young. An expectant mother should diligently pray to her for a good clutch.

Their eggs are smaller than the head of a human newborn. Given that female Sangheili are also much bigger than humans, this adds up to their laying being little more stressful than the amount of pressure you might need for a particularly difficult bowel movement. The concept of the danger and pain of a human birth is absolutely astounding to them.

Their eggs have a soft, leathery shell, and their brood time is dependent on race and the gravity in which the female was exposed while gestating (so, it takes different amounts of time depending on what planet she is on). Generally, the timeframe ranges from 2-10 months, with Sangheilios being about 5 months. (I know canon once said it was like immediate, but that is dumb.) Eggs must be kept warm. In traditional times, they were buried in dirt mounds, as is also common in some low-class Keeps for tradition's sake, but in high-class ones, they are kept in brooding chambers.

Hatching is considered a celebratory occasion, and much of the family will gather to watch it.

It is considered inappropriate for an adult to help a hatchling hatch, as this is his first gauntlet. If he fails to hatch in time, he can die in his egg. However, hatchling Sangheili have an instinct to help each other out of their eggs, and some Keeps allow this as a way of encouraging bonds. It is common for a Sangheili to adopt a life debt to any Sangheili who, as a hatchling, helped him out of his egg.

Hatchling Sangheili are about as sapient as hatchling crocodiles (and are both a similar size and make similar sounds). Unlike human newborns, a newhatch Sangheili is rather mobile (crawling quadrupedaly), able to eat solid food, etc. However, a newhatch Sangheili is incredibly instinct-driven. They quite literally act like baby reptiles, with their sapience and curiosity kicking in after a few months. For the first few months of their life, they also sleep almost constantly between feedings, and grow rapidly, going from able to fit in their mother's palm to as tall as her forearm by their first year. They tend to squeak a lot at each other and their mother, but fall quiet when their mother or other squeaking newhatches aren't around. They do not scream anywhere as loud as human babies do.

They are little biters, especially when they are still in their instinct-driven era. They perceive everything as "sibling", "food", or "mother", based on smell, and if you aren't sibling or mother, they will go for blood. While it's insanely unlikely for a Sangheili to be mobbed to death by a horde of babies, it's not impossible, especially a pre-pubescant Sangheili against a big enough baby horde. It'd basically be "death by a thousand paper cuts", and their teeth aren't long enough to effectively pierce an adult Sangheili's skin, but they could penetrate a human's.

This is also why it's important to be there to witness the hatching: they will perceive by scent any non-hatchling Sangheili who were present at their hatching as "mother", and any hatchling Sangheili as "sibling". Only after about a year old do they start actually registering their real mother from other adult Sangheili. They can be made to be used to your scent over time, though.

After about a year old, they become simultaneously strong enough to actually be able to bite an adult Sangheili, and, luckily, smart enough to generally recognise their own species as "not food".

When kept in a moist environment, they fall into and stay in a deep sleep, only waking when the air dries out or they hear their mother. For their ancient ancestors, this meant a mother could leave her baby in a mud pit or make a mud nest for him, and trust he'd stay there while she went out hunting. For modern Sangheili, this of course means that their cribs have humidity control, to ensure the little one stays still and asleep.

(What I headcanon the Pods in the BloodLines comic are)

Once they become old enough to start walking bipedally, they also begin toilet-training. If their tail has been removed, which occurs at hatching, then both of these training times will take 2x to 3x longer, as their brain tries to balance them with a "phantom tail". Even leaving a half tail (like what Fira and Naz have) is enough to ensure the tail has enough weight left to prevent walking difficulties.

Also, I show here what the proportions are for different ages. The youngest is probably around 6 months, and the eldest is in early puberty.

Gonna ramble a bit about how I think Marriage works to Sangheili.

(Side note: Sangheili have many cultures across many planets, so there is no reason to presume that all Sangheili have the same concept for Marriage. For example, while it's commonly known that Sangheili don't know who their father is, the Ussans didn't have that concept, and commonly knew who their fathers were).

Some things we know:

Sangheili have a concept of polyamory, specifically polygyny

Sangheili don't generally know who their fathers are (usually)

Sangheili practice wife-trading (as in, one Keep obtains women from another Keep).

Sangheili females generally have control over their marriage rights and mate selection, despite the wife-trading thing.

Sangheili do not have a concept of human concepts of divorce.

I want to make a headcanon ramble that ties all of these things neatly together.

First, there are two different terms of importance: Marriage, and Mate (in the sense of "Fira is Thel's mate"/"Fira is Thel's wife"). To many human cultures, these are the same. To Sangheili, these are two different things.

Marriage

Marriage means that a Sangheili has entered another Sangheili's family, specifically for mating-right purposes. This is usually done via a female entering a male's family, but can also be a male entering a female's, or same-sex coupling. For the sake of convenience in this post, I'm going to refer to all scenarios as "She entered his family", which is the case like 80% of the time.

So, say Naz 'Shenen decides to marry into Shai 'Garan's family. As he is a low rank, this means that she has mating rights to him, his brothers, and his male friends. If she has an egg, she can declare that the egg's uncle is him, his brother, his male friend, or her brother. In the final case, she can either send the childling to go and be raised in her family, or bring her brother to Shai's family. If she does the latter, her brother can become a member of Shai's family as well. If her family raises the childling, then when he/she is of age, he/she can choose to rejoin the mother or remain in the raising family

If the person receiving a spouse is a Keep Elder, then the wife becomes a Keep Wife. A Keep Wife has mating access to any of the Keep Elders or the Kaidon. She is generally expected to not mate with any male inferior to the rank she married into. The exception is the Kaidon Wife, who is the Kaidon's personal companion and matriarch of the Keep Wives. Despite being married to the highest rank male who outranks the Elders, she can still mate with the Elders and is considered a Keep Wife in that regard.

The Kaidon generally is expected to get first dibs on any Keep Wife's first heat from when she enters the family, and any heat the Kaidon Wife has. He doesn't have to, but it's a courtesy.

The Sangheili word for "Wife" is different from the word for "Mate". "My Wife" should mean something more like "My family's wife". Human translators often translate them as the same word (ex. a human might hear a male Sangheili refer to his "Wife", when he actually used the word for "Mate".) Generally, the only time the Sangheili word for "Wife" is used to refer to an individual, is when it is spoken of or about the Kaidon: The Kaidon is the personification of the Keep itself, so all Keep Wives are his wives, and all Keep Wives refer to him personally as the Sangheili word for "Husband", although out of courtesy, Keep Wives usually state something like "Kaidon 'Vadam is my husband", while the Kaidon Wife would say "Kaidon Thel 'Vadam is my husband."

Mates

A "Mate" is a usually monogamous pairbond between two Sangheili. A Sangheili may declare another as his "mate" even if he has not fathered any children with her. Generally, "Mate" means less "only I can mate with her", and more "I love her / I am responsible for her emotional well-being." It is also common for a female Sangheili's mate to get first dibs on her heat, and therefore it is more likely that her offspring are fathered by her actual mate.

In very low-class, labouring families, like the one in which Fira was hatched, it's common to not dick around with the father's identity thing, since the females have better things to do than keep track of males or over-complicate things, so almost all childlings are just sired by their mother's mate, and they just know who their father is. If her mate dies or leaves her, or she has too many kids for him to mentor them all, she just assigns her/his brother to be an mentoring uncle. Generally, a male won't mentor more than 2 younglings/childlings at a time.

About 20% of Sangheili have two pairbonds. For example, Thel considers both Fira and Rtas as his mates, and Rtas considers both Thel and Thel's sister Lia as his mates (and obviously, this does not have to extend both ways: Fira is not Rtas' mate and Lia is not Thel's). They often point to spiritualism to support this: Pointing out "I have two hearts, and I give one to each of you." Or "As Urs has Joori and Fied/ Sangheilios has Qikost and Suban, so do I have you two." (There are different Sangheili myths on how the celestial bodies are related to each other, such as:

All six of them are siblings

Urs is a Kaidon, Joori and Fied are his council of elders, and Sangheilios, Qikost, and Suban are their Keep Wives.

Like above, but Sangheilios is also a male elder.

Like above, but everyone is a male elder and there are no Keep Wives (less common. Most myths posit the moons as females).

Urs is in a gay poly relationship with Joori and Fied (less common myth, but commonly believed by gay Sangheili)

Urs or Sangheilios are in a straight poly relationship with Qikost and Suban

Urs and either Qikost or Suban are the parents of the other Celestial bodies.

Qikost and Suban are the mothers of all planets in the Urs-Fied-Joori system, and the three stars are the fathers/uncles/mentors.

Etc.

Divorce

Because Sangheili marriage isn't a 1:1 thing, divorce does exist to them, but looks nothing like what it looks to us. There are no laws locking one Sangheili to another, so if two Sangheili who are coupled decide to not be coupled anymore (what we would consider "divorce"), there is no big deal made. They just stop hanging around each other and he stops being one of her mating interests. She remains in the family she was married into.

However, if she decides to leave the family all together, it is a bit of a different story. A female who leaves the family she married into will generally:

Take her kids with her, regardless of how old they are. All of them lose right to that family, even if they are adults, elders, or the Kaidon himself.

Return to the family in which her mother currently resides (even if it is not the one that female was hatched in).

(If her mother is dead) Return to the last family that housed her mother.

(If she chooses not to go back to that family), enter a new family or start a new family.

If a male leaves a family he married into, he will:

Lose access to his kids and to any young he was uncling/mentoring. Adult kids might still want to stay in contact with him, but Younglings and Childlings are redirected to focus on their new mentor.

NOT return to his mother. He is expected to enter a different family all together, or start a new one. (His mother, however, may choose to join him).

And since marriage is not 1:1 to them, you can divorce your family without divorcing your partner. In this situation,

Your partner can choose to join you.

If a male leaves a family he married into, and his mate comes with him, and they have underage kids, he is allowed to return to his mother's family, and have his kids adopted into his mother's family.

Otherwise, the couple can also just start a new family or join a different one.

Wife-Trading

Wife-Trading is basically unheard of in any level of Sangheili marriage except Keep Wives.

A Wife-Trading situation is used to help strengthen alliances. Generally, the receiving family will offer alliance to the giving family, and the giving family may choose to demonstrate their welcome of the alliance by sending some of their Sangheili to join that allied Keep.

Not only wives are traded: males are also traded, although usually as military officers.

Regardless of if the trade is done of a male soldier or a female wife, the decision of who will be sent will be made first by a few mothers volunteering their sons or daughters, then the Kaidon and Council of Elders deciding, then the son or daughter confirming. The son or daughter is allowed to reject the offer, although they usually do not wish to disappoint their family in this way.

In Lin's case, she did not want to go to Vadam, but as her Keep, Refum, found it very important that the daughter of Sesa 'Refumee's sister be sent in their alliance agreement, to show that they are no longer mad at Thel for killing Sesa, Lin felt immense personal pressure to do it. But she could have said no with no real repercussion besides personal shame.

The purpose of the Wife-Trade is not just to give the receiving Keep more women, but to establish the giving Keep's blood in the receiving Keep, giving them more social power in that Keep. It is also used to demonstrate that the receiving Keep will respect the alliance, by making the woman the personification of the alliance. This means that if she is mistreated in her receiving Keep, her original Keep will take her back and consider this an act of war. They will also become suspicious if she is in the receiving Keep a long time without procreating: they will be suspicious that she feels unsafe or that the receiving Keep is not a good place to raise young.

Because mistreating a traded wife can cause a war, Sangheili in the receiving Keep do not take their responsibility to care for her lightly: if any male is seen abusing her, his own brothers' hands will be the first to tear out his throat, as they will see his abuse of her as an act of treason to their Keep.

Same-Sex Marriage

Sangheili see being gay as little more than a personal preference, so have basically no thoughts on it. Since you don't need to know who your kids are anyway, there's not really anyone keeping track of the fact that a particular male happens to not have procreated with a female.

Because marriage is primarily just about belonging to a family, they also have no concept of gay marriage. If a male wants to marry a male of another family, then he just joins that family, his mate vouches for him, and he's treated just like any of the other males in the family, with no questions asked about why he shares a bedroom with another male. Likewise for females. Legally, they are seen as just having entered the family voluntarily, not specifically by marriage.

My headcanons on some daily Sangheili tools. They probably have more creative-looking soap bottles, though.

Chewing Bone: A piece of raw, dried vertebrae, usually from a velithra or other large herbivore. As Sangheili eat very little sugar, they do not need to daily brush their teeth, but chewing bones are used to assist in cleaning in and around teeth.

Face Brush: Used during sheddings. The pick at the back can be used to help loosen shedding scales. Sangheili shed bits of scale at a time, not all at once.

Body Brush: A thicker, frame, often with wire teeth on the back, is used for Sangheili with more pointy, spike-like scales, so as to get around the spike crevices, while thinner brushes are used for duller scales.

Scale File: Used to file down sharper scales, as they may tear clothing.

Standard Soap and Face Wash

Moisturiser: More commonly used by females, but can be used by males as well.

Scent Soap: Some variants are similar to deoderant, in that they help mask natural pheromones. Others are used to increase natural pheromones (the latter is usually worn by females in heat, or by a male or female who is seeking a mate). A common superstition is that when a female is pregnant, the pheromones of other females around her helps discourage miscarriage or dead eggs, as it assures the developing fetus that there are many females around who can help raise him, so Pheromone Increasing Scent Soaps are worn by the female friends and family of a pregnant female. If a fetus can actually smell others' pheromones through both his egg shell and his mother's body is unknown.

Shedder: A special moisturiser that encourages healthy newscale growth.

Soaking Gel: While Sangheili are warm-blooded, they are not as good at regulating their body temperature as humans are. Soaking Gel works similarly to Aloe Vera, in that it is a moisturiser that helps keep the Sangheili's skin cool and retaining moisture in hot, arid environments. Also, commonly worn under bodygloves/armour.

Some of these are canon, some are my headcanon, and I can't remember which ones are which.

Happy - Closed or Semi-Closed Eyes, Closed Mandibles

Moderate Focus - Slit Pupils, Mandibles held half-open

Locked-in Focus (Aggressive) - Rounded Pupils, Mandibles held half-open

Locked-in Focus (Playful) - Rounded Pupils, Mandibles held tightly closed

The Rounded Pupils serve multiple purposes: They bring in more light, to help him see his target, and increase his foveal vision at the cost of his peripheral vision. With an increased foveal vision, he needs to move his eyes less or not at all while visually planning a strategy, thus the rounded pupils prevent his opponent from using his eyegaze to plan a counterattack.

Disgusted/Confused - Scrunched muzzle, Slit Pupils

Curious/Confused - Head cocking

Scent Processing/Tracking (similar to a Flehmen Response) - Half-closed Mandibles, Raised Head, slit pupils with unfocused gaze. May twitch his Mandibles to direct the scent coming into the scent glands located in his mouth hole, which helps him calculate the direction from which the scent is coming.

(Same Commissioner. He requested all of the Disquisitor ladies showing off their tushies in bikinis. Including the worm colony who identifies as a woman.)

I headcanon that Sangheili have a hard time maintaining fat, so without that, I wanted to give my ladies different body types, based on muscle size, height, spikes, smoothness/roughness of skin, and where they tend to store the fat and muscle they do have.

Jayli: The Sangheili equivalent of a "shortstack". Short, buff as hell, massive tail. Also, very spiky.

Fira: The Sangheili equivalent of "big and curvy". Tall, buff with stocky muscle, medium tail. Also a bit spiky.

Lin: The Sangheili equivalent of "petite (albeit a bit tall)" Smooth skin with less scales, very little visible muscle, nub tail.

Throughout the levels, we could collect 3D models of the characters to view in the lobby (like what you can do in some of the FNAF games, where you can collect character Blueprints) I imagine this is because I tend to use 3D models on Sketchfab as drawing references for drawing the Cov species, so my brain incorporated a way to "earn" those models in the dream.

We got to a level where were were surrounded by horde of Kig-Yar and Unggoy and Yanme'e, and after they flooded us repeatedly, we realised that they only attack in response: if you don't attack them, they will actually stand back and let you pass.