Sith-Covenant War

The Sith-Covenant War was a huge conflict that occured around the same time as the Galactic Civil War. Whilst the Covenant began its initial expansion, they began experimenting with the Slipspace technology that have salvaged from Forerunner glyphs and relics, and several of these experiments led to some ships, and even whole fleets, simply disappearing, never to be heard from again.

Naturally, these ships or fleets were suspected to be lost with all hands, atomised in slipspace explosions or destroying due to collapsing portals. However, one such fleet, known as the Fleet of Binding Unity, survived a miscalculated slipspace jump and ended up in the Outer Rim of the Force Galaxy.

Some initial exploration caused the fleet to come into contact with the resident Galactic Empire, led by the Sith Lord Palpatine. Upon their first encounter with the Covenant, the Galactic Empire initially came off worst - their lasers had no effect on the Covenant fleet and their shielding, and the Plasma-based weapons of the Covenant proved to be highly effective against Imperial ships.

Despite this, the Empire continued to hunt the Fleet of Binding Unity. Upon the completion of their first Death Star, the Empire were eager to use this devastating weapon against their new foes, and were able to bring the station into close range of the fleet during a skirmish above Corellia. The Death Star fired a concentrated blast at the Covenant Carrier Unfolding of Truth, piercing its shields and obliterating the ship entirely. This proved to be a morale boost for the Imperial navy since this was their first kill in space warfare against the Covenant.

However, it came at a cost. Due to the long recharge time of the Death Star's main weapon, the Empire withdrew the station and left the remainder of their fleet open to the sustained bombardment of the 40 Covenant ships that still remained. After landing troops on Corellia to pick up supplies and fight the Empire on the ground, the Covenant vessels deployed thousands of fighters that easily cut through Imperial TIE squadrons with ease.

On the ground, however, the Empire gained the upper hand - with limited troops and resources the Covenant were forced to defend a single landing zone and the destruction of the Unfolding of Truth had severely depleted their supply of ground vehicles. The Fleetmaster Edo 'Sumomee ordered that all ground forces retreat back into their warships for departure, however, a Sith Assassin managed to sneak aboard one of the dropships and thus enter a Covenant cruiser. The Assassin fought with several Elites in the main hangar of a CCS Cruiser before using the Force to collide the ship with two of its neighbours, killing himself but destroying all three ships in the process.

Following this, the Covenant began to loose their advantage. By this time, the Death Star had completed an orbit of Corellia and had thus recharged its main weapon, enabling it to destroy another Covenant Carrier before the Fleet of Binding Unity retreated, having lost nearly a tenth of its ships to Imperial Naval combat.

After this, the Fleet was never seen again in the Force Galaxy, however it eventually made it back to the Milky Way Galaxy to relay to the Covenant what had occured. The Covenant deemed the Sith heretics and demanded a war against them, but they refused to commit ships to a Galaxy-wide invasion and quickly abandoned this concept. The Sith, meanwhile, realised that their Galaxy was not alone in the Universe, and this prepared them for a later encounter with the League years later...