Kig-Yar - Jackals Military History Halo

“Jackals may be superior marksmen and they're very sneaky, but that doesn't make them excellent snipers — they’re a little too bloodthirsty for that.”
— Anonymous UNSC serviceman

The Kig-Yar (Forerunner designation, translated into Latin: Perosus latrunculus, or "Hateful Bandit," human designation: Covenant secundarium carnivora prœdonis, or "Covenant secondary carnivorous combatant") are an avian/reptilian species which served the Covenant as mercenaries and privateers. There are two distinct subgroups of Kig-Yar, which Humans have termed Jackals and Skirmishers. In combat, Kig-Yar typically serve as snipers, shock troopers, defensive fighters, and scouts within the Covenant due to their excellent senses of sight, smell, and hearing.

The Ark and reseeding

The Kig-Yar were one of many species indexed by The Librarian and preserved on Installation 00 from the firing of the Halo Array. They were subsequently returned to their homeworld, where they began re-building their culture.

Pre-Covenant history

During their early history, Kig-Yar society was divided into clans that sailed across Eayn's seas as pirates, raiding the encampments and settlements of rival clans. Eventually, the clans united, and the Kig-Yar species worked together in developing space-travel technology. Shortly afterward, they established colonies on many small asteroids around Chu'ot. Some Kig-Yar continued their ancient ways of life and became pirates once more, preying upon merchant starships. These groups of pirates were the Kig-Yar's only effective response to the overwhelming Covenant military juggernaut that arrived in the Kig-Yar home system in 1342.

The Covenant

The war between the Covenant and Kig-Yar forces culminated in sieges of redoubts on the asteroids surrounding their world. Eventually, in order to survive, they accepted Letters of Marque: commissions from the Ministry of Tranquility to engage in the services of the Covenant, though often this was merely used as an excuse to continue their plundering lifestyle. The Kig-Yar would spend much of their time preying on the ships of the Covenant's enemies, such as humanity.

Kig-Yar are around the same level as the Unggoy in the Covenant hierarchy, although the Kig-Yar despise the Unggoy and believe themselves to be superior. These tensions reached a boiling point in 2462, when some Kig-Yar in High Charity attempted to poison Infusions, recreational narcotics the Unggoy enjoyed, which would have left the Unggoy sterile, in retaliation for the Unggoy encroaching on their habitats and displacing Kig-Yar nests. Although a junior staffer in the Ministry of Concert found evidence of this, the High Council failed to properly investigate the incident, culminating in the Unggoy Rebellion.

A Kig-Yar missionary ship, the Minor Transgression, was the first Covenant vessel to make contact with Humans. The ship raided a commercial freighter leaving the planet Harvest, and the events that followed would later lead to full-scale military action on the part of humanity and the Covenant.

Following the outbreak of the Human-Covenant war, a group of Kig-Yar under Reth made contact with the Rubble, a community of human survivors of the glassing of Madrigal. The Kig-Yar agreed to trade Covenant weaponry in exchange for slipspace drives. Although the humans believed the Kig-Yar were defying Covenant authority, they were in fact secretly proceeding with the blessing of the High Prophet of Truth to use the weapons to map UNSC space and learn the location of Earth. They also built up an army of hundreds of thousands of Unggoy. The plan fell apart due to the High Prophet of Regret sending Sangheili warriors to investigate the weapons, believing the Kig-Yar to be heretics. In the Battle of the Rubble and the Battle of Metisette, Reth and his forces were killed by Spartan-II Gray Team and the crew of the UNSC Midsummer Night.

During the Great Schism, some Kig-Yar sided with the Loyalists while others sided with the Separatists.

Post-Covenant

By 2553, an unknown number of Kig-Yar had settled on the human Insurrectionist world Venezia. They were numerous enough to have their own compound on the planet. There, they integrated quite well with the humans, trading with them and living side by side with little animosity.

By the year 2557, a species of Kig-Yar from the continent of Ibie'sh served as combatants in the splinter group known as Jul 'Mdama's Covenant. Many later served under the Ur-Didact, who the Kig-Yar believed to be a god due to their continued faith in the old Covenant religion of worshiping the Forerunners.

In 2559, Kig-Yar forces engaged Humans on Kholo.